Remnant Heroes (RIMN)
by Adam Rook
Summary: A story unfolds between a group of orphans when an incident occurs in their youth, unlocking a set of unusual semblances dubbed "The Holy Weapons". With a keen eye from Ozpin, they are given the chance to set off to their new lives at Beacon Academy, where they become team RIMN. But not all is simple in this world...
1. Prologue

Night time came to be.

It was the time where children had to sleep. The dusk was signaled by the blackened sky, as millions of white stars had been scattered across the void, centering themselves around the shattered moon. As the fragments looked to be drifting away, this was the scenery that they were familiar with for as long as they could remember, but to Naofumi, this probably wasn't one of those days where they should be staying up late to admire the beauty of the night.

Nevertheless, a soft whisper had been tugging on him. He tried to lazily fight back against the words, too tired to figure out who it was, but as the whispers repeated themselves, it started to become a familiar voice.

"...fumi… Naofumi… Hey, Naofumi!"

He was starting to become annoyed, but at least he knew who had been pushing against his body from the tone alone.

Naofumi rolled over to face his exasperated expression over to the culprit—as much as he could express with groggily eyes. He rubbed them to clear them up, seeing his curly-haired friend right by his bedside. Even in the darkness, it was rather easy to pick out his friend's figure.

"What do you want, Itsuki?"

"I was wondering where you were! Ren and Moto are already waiting outside! And here you are, sleeping away! I thought we promised that we would all go out tonight!"

As Itsuki childishly complained, Naofumi took a moment to recall his memory, vaguely latching onto the agreement that they formed about a week about.

"Oh. Right." However, Naofumi rolled back into his bed, turning his back towards Itsuki and covering himself in his blanket. "Look, I'm not going. We're going to get in deep trouble, especially with yesterday's antics we pulled off. It's better if we lay low with these types of shenanigans."

"W-What!?"

Itsuki threw his hands onto Naofumi's shoulder, tugging the tired friend back and forth. Now, he was starting to understand how Ren felt when he had to deal with some of the younger kids that presided here. Albeit, he really didn't want to understand from that perspective.

Naofumi kept grumbling, tugging against Itsuki's force. "Besides, it's not like there's much for us to do. Where would you even want to do at this time of the day?"

Itsuki raised his eyebrows in offense. "Huh? Isn't that the entire point of an adventure!? Let's go exploring! The night only makes it that much more adventurous!"

Naofumi sighed. "Itsuki. I know it's your fourteenth birthday and all, but wasn't the celebration this afternoon enough already? Having fun with the children as the staff here must have been enough for you today. I mean, they were all over you. I don't think I've seen them smile that much before even though they smile plenty already."

"This afternoon was different!" Itsuki pouted. "I want to go on an adventure with my best friends!"

Naofumi was not in the mood for dealing with this stubborn side of his friend. He was tired from helping around the building with the annual celebration and cleaning up after the mess that was made all over. He was thankful that everyone was able to have fun, but this was pretty much pushing it. He even tried to made it evident as to how tired he was by exaggerating his voice slightly.

"Please, Itsuki. Let's just go to sleep. Aren't you and Ren on chore duties tomorrow morning?"

"That's not your problem! Now let's go!"

"I want to sleep!"

Itsuki stopped his shaking. It seemed like what Naofumi had to do was to be honest with the truth—that he really was tired and wanted some rest for tomorrow. However, he heard Itsuki as he cleared his throat.

"Oh, look at me! I'm Naofumi Iwatani!" He didn't even want to turn around to look at him, knowing that he was probably doing some actions to go along with the blatant imitation. "Rather than going on an adventure, filled with amusement and joy, I rather be a grumpy person and stay in bed and ruin the entire plan that I previously agreed to, only for a few extra hours of sleep!"

"Itsuki, please knock it off."

"I'm Naofumi Iwatani, and I'm telling my friend Itsuki Kawasumi to knock off the clearly accurate representation of myself!"

"Goddammit, Itsuki." Naofumi tried to cover his ears from Itsuki's mockery with his pillow, gritting his teeth. There wasn't any real success to it, as if it hadn't been the words, it would have been the body-shaking motion Itsuki went back to.

"Don't be like this, Nao!" The shaking got to the point where the bed must have been feeling the force. "Ren and Moto are getting impatient already! You know how irritated Ren gets when people make him wait for a long time! And besides, you already promised! No take-backs!"

This was most likely a battle Naofumi lost, regardless of how he wanted to approach it. Itsuki's stubbornness would probably last as long as it would take, effectively killing those few hours he would have saving to sleep. As Naofumi took this time to weigh the options and outcomes, he finally took one more sigh—this time, it was out of defeat.

"Fine, fine!"

"That's the spirit, Nao!"

Naofumi growled lightly as he turned over towards Itsuki. With the ecstatic smile of his friend radiating within the room, Naofumi rolled out of the bed, laying his blanket on the side. His clothes were around the closet at the other end of the room—

—or so he thought. It looked like Itsuki went into the trouble of selecting his clothes for him, laying them on along the dresser beside Naofumi's bed. It wasn't much, consisting of only of a white shirt and black pants, but Itsuki must have known that Naofumi would have literally taken the first thing he saw in the closet, replicating that action himself. He even got Naofumi's favourite green sweater, to seal the deal.

However, there was something awfully concerning next to the clothes.

There was a rope made from tied clothings, laced together with a strong knot. Naofumi didn't even believe that Itsuki could have done such a tight knot like that, but after thinking about it, it must have been Ren that made the rope. Things like that were up his alley, but he didn't know what it was for.

"Just get ready, Nao! Quickly!"

"Shush! You've been speaking too loud! You might wake up the others in the next rooms!"

"A-Ah…" Itsuki wrly chuckled. "R-Right."

Naofumi quickly got changed as Itsuki turned his back, letting him slip into his pre-selected clothing. His sweater was the last article to be worn, as he did his instinctive arms stretches afterwards.

"Alright, let's get out of here." Naofumi began to walk ahead of Itsuki towards the door. As his hand held the door knob, he looked back at him. "Where did you say Ren and Motoyasu were again?"

"Why tell you? I'll just bring you there."

However, Itsuki's hand had been held against Naofumi's shoulder. There was a devious smirk painted across Itsuki's expression, making Naofumi worry about what was going on. Itsuki was acting odd, odder than usual.

He began pulling him away from the door, causing Naofumi to be perplexed at the clear contradiction of Itsuki's desires and actions. There was only one way out of this room as far as Naofumi knew about it. They were on the fourth floor of the building, so it wasn't as if the window had been an opt—

—… oh no.

Suddenly, the rope made sense, but Naofumi didn't want to acknowledge it.

He really didn't want Itsuki to take this route.

"I-Itsuki! Hey, Itsuki!" There was almost a plea in Naofumi's tone; a sense of desperation that what he assumed was wrong; a hope that Itsuki simply forgot how rooms worked in the heat of the moment. "You know, the doors are on the other side of the room! How can we leave if we don't use the door!?"

"Ohohohoh… I know." Itsuki looked back, almost with a mischievous glare to his eyes. Naofumi held his breath. "I said we're going on an adventure, right!?"

Itsuki released Naofumi from his pulling and once they reached the window, Itsuki opened it to let in the cold breeze. However, Naofumi dreaded that Itsuki didn't simply open it for a cold breeze. Even up to this moment, Naofumi was depending on the fact that Itsuki might have been pranking him.

"Doors are for pussies! We're leaving this room like they do within those _'Huntsman's Creed'_ video games!" Itsuki announced, tossing the held rope into the outside world then wrapping the end around the nearby dresser's leg. It turned out that Ren eventually taught Itsuki how to do this specific knot apparently.

He was frozen at the convoluted plan to leave the building. He wasn't even believing in what he was hearing here. Nevertheless, Naofumi desperately tried to make some reason with the spirited friend.

"H-Have you even played those games!? We don't have computers here, much less consoles!" Naofumi was trying this tie this around to a reasoning that these types of escapes had been more difficult than Itsuki might expect, but Itsuki managed to cut him off before he could say anymore.

"I saw trailers in some of the stores when we were taken to town that one time!" A grin, the specific expression that Naofumi could say that belonged to a maniac, appeared across Itsuki's mouth. "Now, let's go! Don't be a party pooper!"

"W-Wait, you're going to hurt—!"

Before Naofumi could have anymore words to interject, Itsuki leapt out of the window with the rope in his hand. Naofumi quickly dashed behind him and sticking his head out in horror.

Itsuki had slid down the rope with such skill, smoothly sailing towards the roof of the second floor. He dropped himself off and slowly made him way over towards the fire emergency staircase that connected the roof with the front yard. Before Itsuki descended, he shot a glance upwards to the distressed Naofumi, waving in content.

The big question still remained for Naofumi. Does he still go?

He looked back inside the room, void of anyone except for him. He looked back towards Itsuki, who had the biggest smile pushing up his cheeks. It was like his eyes were sparkling within the night. But then he looked back towards the room, specifically his own bed. Technically speaking, if he really wanted to, he could pull up the rope and go back to sleep.

"C'mon, Nao! What's the hold-up!?"

Naofumi stared at the happy Itsuki, probably at the fact that he managed to pull a certain person out of bed when they were supposed to be sleeping. Despite the rules that they were clearly breaking, Naofumi couldn't help but to sigh. He clenched his hands together.

I'm going to regret this so much, aren't I?

Naofumi gulped. The adrenaline had been ramping up within his head as his hands tightly held onto the rope. the knot had looked sturdy enough and he wasn't needing to descend all three floors at once to reach the ground. However, it still meant he had to cover two floors and that was still rather high.

He took a deep breath as he carefully threaded himself through the window. Sweat was starting to form along his hands as he slowly slipped out, little by little—inch by inch.

He really didn't understand how Itsuki was able to slide on down so easily. Getting past the first level was already a difficult challenge without straight-up getting hurt. His heart was starting to beat harder than before as he continued on his way. There was saying 'slowly and surely' that existed, but Naofumi knew now that it didn't take into account fear.

"Oh? Is Naofumi really climbing downwards?"

Naofumi turned his head downwards, seeing that two figures had rose up from the fire emergency stairwell that would have led to the front yard. One person had his blue hoodie, covering his black hair while the other had somewhat long and blonde hair. There were enough jokes in the group to get him to tie it in short ponytail, in which he did.

Itsuki turned around to see the same, only from the obvious different angle.

"Oh, Ren. Moto. You came to see what was going on?" Itsuki turned back to the descending Naofumi. He was at the quartered mark of the destination. "He's taking his sweet time though. I didn't find it to be that hard..."

"... Itsuki." Ren nudged him against his arm. "You do remember that Naofumi has a fear of heights… right?"

Itsuki's eyes widened.

Motoyasu nodded. "Yeah. That's why we were making bets and everything while you were getting Nao. Ren said that he'll be able to climb down, while I said said he would chicken out."

"... Oh… shit." He immediately looked out cupping his voice to send to Naofumi. "S-Sorry! I completely forgot about that! Why didn't you say anything!?"

"I-I tried!"

Ren, Itsuki and Motoyasu glanced upwards as they watched Naofumi make it towards the halfway point. It was getting rather close, but it stilled like despite the decreased height between him and the ground, Naofumi had significantly slowed his pace.

"C'mon, Naofumi!" Ren shouted. "You're almost there. Just don't look down!"

"That's right! Take your time! You got this!" Motoyasu cheered.

However, Ren glared over to Motoyasu as he did, narrowing his eyes. "Hey, Motoyasu. I thought you were betting against Naofumi that he wouldn't be able to make it down."

Motoyasu raised his eyebrows, as if Ren had asked something obvious. "Uh, Nao is my friend too, you know. If we cheer him on, he might eventually get over his fear of heights one day!"

"And why did you bet against him?"

Motoyasu smirked. "Because I was playing the game with the highest probability!"

"... Whatever," Ren shrugged. "It's your money—or rather, my money now."

Naofumi got flustered at Motoyasu's clear declaration and turned his head to shut down in a panicked state. "S-Screw you! I'm right here, Motoyasu! You know I-I can do—"

However, his quick twist caused his hands to slip from the rope. His body had been falling backwards towards the second floor roof, causing Ren and Motoyasu to be thrown onto their alerts.

"Naofumi!" "NAO!"

As Naofumi's body had been falling down, back pointed against the surface both Ren and Motoyasu pushed Itsuki out of the way. Their quick acting led both children to slide underneath where Naofumi was falling, landing against their own bodies. The impact ended with a subtle sound, but Naofumi had his heart pounding. Thankfully, it was pretty much the only thing that had been irregular in his systems.

"Grrah…" Ren groaned underneath the boy. "You're lucky that it wasn't a far drop…"

"You had me worried there…" Motoyasu chuckled out of his slight discomfort.

Naofumi quickly shook his off and got himself off his friends. "T-Thanks, you two. That would be a lot more serious if I landed on the roof itself."

Ren and Motoyasu got back up, rolling their limbs around to see if anything broke. If it did, Naofumi wouldn't have known what to do about it, but considering how they were back to smiling in content, he was inclined to believe that they got lucky this time around. However, Itsuki approached the three friends once more.

"Y-You guys okay!?"

"Something like that?" Ren shrugged it off. "It shouldn't have done much."

"Well," Motoyasu sighed, "I am down 1 Lien now. Ren, do you accept IOU's?"

"Of course, as always. What's the total now? 5 Lien?"

"5?" Motoyasu was taken back. "I could have sworn it was—"

"It was a trick question, Motoyasu. I know it's 5 Lien."

"Hehehehe…" Motoyasu tried to laugh off his attempt at decreasing the amount he owed Ren from the previous lost bets. All he did was add another 1 Lien to the pot.

"Alright! If everyone is ready, then let's head on towards adventure!" Itsuki brazenly exclaimed as he pointed to whatever seemed like a random direction. To what Naofumi knew, there wasn't anything particularly exciting around the area that Itsuki shown.

"Uh, where are you pointing to?" Ren asked before Naofumi could open his mouth.

"I don't know!" Itsuki responded, looking at Ren in offense. "If I knew, would I have recommended that direction!? Anyways, c'mon! Last one in the front yard is a rotting grim!"

With those words, he dashed forward and started going down the fire stairs in a sprint. Ren wordlessly followed him, passing both Naofumi and Motoyasu. He was probably past his patience for waiting around at this point. Either that or Ren really didn't want to be a rotting grim.

"I can't believe we're doing this. We're gonna get into so much trouble," Naofumi complained.

"Relax! We'll think about it later! This is definitely gonna be fun!" Motoyasu smiled, patting Naofumi on the back. "What's the point of adventure if we don't actually venture?"

At this point, Naofumi was too tired to keep fighting that logic. Motoyasu was right. If he was already out here, he might as well enjoy his time with his friends before the reckoning comes when they returned. Naofumi surrendered himself in the grasp of his friends, something he wasn't going to complain much about.

* * *

Night time had fallen.

And yet, the city was still bright enough for the friends to walk down without any visual problems. There weren't many people out around this time, only the occasional employee that was probably working overtime, rushing home to collect as much sleep as they could before the sun rose again. To them, it might have been odd to see a group of youths wandering around the streets at this time, but it wasn't their job to waste more time on getting them home. Passing underneath the many street lamps, Naofumi stared at the handful of people who passed by, with them disregarding the group, and him wishing that his little group had realized the time by now, following in the workers' footsteps.

Naofumi could hear the licks and slurps that came from in front. Ren and Itsuki were happily snacking on popsicles that they had bought in the convenience store they came across a few minutes ago. Itsuki couldn't help but be a bit messy when holding the chilled refreshment, as Naofumi noticed a few of its melted drops landing onto the cemented pavement.

"Mmmph!" Itsuki pulled out the popsicle, sliding the cold edge against the edges of his mouth. "It's so good! I always wanted to try out one of these! It's as good as I thought it was, and then some!"

"You sure said it." Ren hadn't been licking it against the sides, pulling it in and out repeatedly. Ren had simply been biting the end and letting it sit in his mouth. "It was pretty cheap too. We sure struck gold when it was on sale for half a lien."

"Hey, Naofumi? Motoyasu? Are you sure you two didn't want to buy one for yourself?"

Itsuki looked over his shoulder to see the other two as Motoyasu and Naofumi had been left with none. All they did was walk behind the munching pair. Ren and Itsuki bought the ice cream using their own pocket money after all, so despite their brotherly friendship, it was every man for themselves when it came to money and trivial spendings.

Motoyasu sighed, dipping his head down slightly. "I don't have any money… I'm still waiting for that next allowance period and even with that allowance, I don't think I'm going to keep most of it…"

Ren had to chuckle in amusement as Motoyasu's words trailed off.

If Motoyasu hadn't taken as many bets as he did with Ren, Motoyasu would have definitely scooped up two for himself. Naofumi could call them somewhat mindless bets, but perhaps he could even call them downright stupid. There were times where the outcome was obvious, but Motoyasu had still bet against it. Naofumi couldn't say it wasn't in good ol' fun though, since Motoyasu enjoyed raising the stakes, smiling even when he lost.

Itsuki glanced over at Naofumi. "What about you? I know you have some pocket change. It's only a few minutes back to the convenience store, so we can easily return if we wanted to."

Naofumi shook his head. "No, I'm fine. I didn't want one anyways."

"You want to taste it?" Itsuki stopped underneath a lamppost that had faulty lighting, flashing in and out. He pointed his popsicle over towards Naofumi's direction with him shaking his head again.

"Really, I'm fine. Thanks for the offer, though."

"Well, suit yourself." Itsuki shrugged, returning back to his focus of leading the way.

"But now that you got yours sweet taste of adventure, priced only at half the market value," Naofumi grumbled, "can we go home now? It's starting to get really late and something might happen if we're not too careful."

"Are you kidding me, Nao!?" Itsuki shot back a quick glance, almost as if he was offended by Naofumi's concerns. "We haven't even gotten started yet! This is just the tip of the iceberg in our adventure! We're doing enough adventures until we break the dawn!"

"... Y-You have chore duty tomorrow, Itsuki!" Naofumi claimed. "You are seriously planning to pull an all-nighter!?"

"Yeah, I agree with Itsuki!" Motoyasu exclaimed, recovering from his dejection from the missed popsicle. "We should do something fun!"

"Motoyasu, please don't motivate them!" Naofumi plead. "You're technically the oldest out of all of us here! Shouldn't you feel some levels of responsibility?"

Ren sighed in the mixture of excitement and bewilderment. "More adventures? Actually, now that I think about it, what would we do? We decided to go on this little adventure, but outside of that, there wasn't really a concrete plan to it. Honestly, we've been walking around the past hour without a goal in mind."

"Thank you, Ren." Naofumi had a moment of relief, seeing that somebody between the two chore-handlers was trying to take the next day seriously. It would be much easier to convince the other two once Ren had been on his side, but he was more focused on avoiding any types of punishment that came with this expedition. Any help is good help—

"If you need a goal for this little adventure of ours, I got an idea that might suit our tastes."

—or not. Naofumi was practically rolling around within his head out of frustration. He couldn't believe that Ren had been this deeply invested into this adventure, as the smile broke across Ren's mouth. As Naofumi held his head in his hands, both Itsuki and Motoyasu gave their attention towards him.

"What is it?" the curious Motoyasu asked.

"An idea?" Itsuki raised his eyebrows as the popsicle returned within his mouth.

Ren bit down on the last bits of his cold treat and slid out the stick smoothly. He took a few steps forward, noticing the nearby trash can and tossing the stick into it, landing right in the center, as he turned back around. There was a noticeable distinction of energy in his eyes, extending his arms outwards in a dramatic fashion.

"Let's find a place that's isolated. There, we can have a semblance stand-off!"

Naofumi froze. Out of all the ideas that could have been brought up, he was starting to curse Ren's offer the most. It wasn't as if he hated the idea of using their awakened semblances, but it was more of trying to use them against each other that irked him even more.

Before Naofumi could get a word out, Motoyasu stepped forward, swinging his arm forward in excitement.

"Ho-ho! I sure like the sound of that!" His arm stopped in front, as he extended a finger upwards. A small flame appeared over the top of that finger.

"What!? No! That's a crazy idea! With Itsuki and Ren, it might be borderline okay, but Motoyasu's main semblance is fire! Someone could get hurt or even seriously burned because of him!"

Naofumi managed to make the quick follow-up before anyone else had any words that wanted to say. He really needed to address the main issue with having any in-fighting, regardless if it was out of amusement, spirited competition or not. They clearly didn't have the same level of technology as seen from the bi-annual Vytal Festival's combat tournament. If Naofumi had to guess, Ren probably got this idea from the television showings in the main living quarters.

"Relax, Naofumi," Ren said, holding a finger up to stop him from speaking any further. "I would never recommend it if we didn't have you on our side. You can heal our wounds with your supportive-type semblance, right? You can even increase our defenses if you manage to predict when an attack is going to land! Though, I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's not like Motoyasu can land an attack on me or anything."

"C'mon, it's not going to be that bad," Motoyasu smiled, as if that was going to change Naofumi's mind. "I've been practicing my semblance behind everyone's back, so I got fairly good control of—Wait, what did you just say, Ren!?"

As Ren smugly chuckled and averted his gaze, Naofumi's complaints still went on.

"T-That doesn't matter! It's better to be safe than sorry here! What if someone gets a wound or an injury that I won't be able to heal!? The best I've ever done was helping with one of the kids' bruises on his knee! And it wasn't even bleeding that much!"

"... Actually, I don't think I like that idea." Itsuki slurped down the melted popsicle in his mouth tossed it over towards the trash can, netting the same results as Ren's attempt. "I really don't like the idea of us fighting with each other. I'd rather have us team up and fight against super villains, being like a team of heroes, fighting for justice."

"Don't worry that much, Itsuki!" Motoyasu responded. "We're just having a training session, not an actual fight! But you have to admit! Nao's cheating since he gets to use his semblance whenever he wants, but what about us? We never get to do the same thing or practice on using our semblances extensively like Nao does, so this is the perfect opportunity to do so!"

Naofumi didn't know how he felt about Motoyasu calling his semblance as a cheat. He never asked for something like this, but if he had it, he might as well use it to help others out. On the other hand, there were many limits on the semblances of the other three.

"If you want us to fight like a team," Ren replied afterwards, "then a stand-off between ourselves is the best way to learn how to do so. Through this, we can learn about our weaknesses and our strengths, alongside insight about everyone as well. We can be more efficient as a team in this case."

"Oh?" Motoyasu walked over and threw his arm over Ren's neck. "You're surprisingly down for this team-based exercise. I thought you were the lone wolf of our orphanage, as such proclaimed as you are. I always thought that moody attitude of yours prevented anything that involved a team!"

"Is that really how you see me?" Ren said, rolling his eyes. "Look, I hate dealing with people that are unreliable. That's all. On the other hand, you guys may be rather annoying and stupid sometimes, but you're definitely people I can count on."

"I don't know how to feel about that, but I'll take it as a compliment!"

Everyone laughed with Ren's interaction with Motoyasu, ending the small conversation with them having a fistbump with one another once Motoyasu released his headlock onto Ren. Even Naofumi had to laugh for a bit, but as the laughter died down, the sudden thought slashed across his mind. He didn't understand what possessed him to say it out loud, but he did anyways.

"... You know that we won't be together forever, right?"

The remnants of laughter within the three friends had suddenly vanished. The faulty lamp post finally gave out, breaking into the small patch of darkness compared to the rest of the street. The atmosphere became much heavier, as someone voiced the truth they didn't want to hear. They were orphans that were almost like brothers, but there might be a day where they'll be taken into another family. There might even be a time where they'll be forced to separate paths on their own accord. The rather awkward silence continued for a solid minute, as Naofumi started to curse himself for letting such a deep question drop like that.

He held his arm with his other hand, biting down on his lower lip. He looked back up towards his friends, each with some type of grief hidden across their faces, each with a varying degree of success.

"... What do you guys want to do in the future?"

As Naofumi tried to push the conversation along to recover from the silence he brought upon them, it proved to be tougher than he expected. The three friends held their tongues, obviously trying to get their mind off the underlying issue, but unable to branch off to another topic.

Naofumi messed up and he knew it. Even if this adventure was not allowed or unwarranted, he never had the intention of breaking them up with a heavy topic. The silence between them was very suffocating, to say the very least.

However, Motoyasu was the one to open his mouth, trying to stir up smiles back into his friends using his own.

"N-Nao, don't you think we're a little too young to think about things like that? We don't even have an adoptive family yet that would take us. Besides, we're all still fourteen years old. We got all the time in the world to think about what we want to do in the future, so why shouldn't we just have fun with the time we still have?"

The light from the lamp post seemed to have fixed itself, shining back onto the four friends.

"Y-Yeah…" Naofumi wryly scratched his head. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to start talking about things like that."

"It's fine, Nao." Motoyasu walked up towards Naofumi, throwing both of his hands onto Naofumi's shoulders. "Let's not think about the future now, and worry about our present. That way, we'll have more fun!"

Both Ren and Itsuki nodded behind Motoyasu as Naofumi gave in towards the supportive words, smiling in Motoyasu's wake.

"I guess you're right."

* * *

Night time was ongoing, deep into the dusk of the darkness.

The urban setting had disappeared long ago, as the group of friends trailed further away from the orphanage. The adventure had continued, much uninfluenced by Naofumi's suggestion, as they must have wandered past the city's proper perimeters. Much to his surprise, Itsuki was eventually convinced to join into the training that Ren had offered, which heavily displeased him.

In the distance, a forest began to come into their sights. Compared to the city, it was a dark environment that could have held anything within. Recently, there had been reports of people seeing grimm within those boundaries and officials have made an attempt to surveillance the area. There was even a fence that was put up to prevent anyone from accidentally wandering in while the investigation was done. Naofumi knew this from the living quarters' television that occasionally broadcasted the news and that was one of its headlines this morning.

To most, Naofumi would have thought that this was the end of the adventure. If they started to walk back now, they would have a good amount of time left to rest up before they would have to be up for breakfast. As Naofumi was about to suggest the idea, Itsuki turned around with his eyes sparkling through the night.

Naofumi had a bad feeling.

"Guys! I have a great idea that could serve for that isolated place!"

Naofumi had a really bad feeling.

"I say that we should use that forest!"

… And there's the bad feeling confirmed.

"Okay, I've been lenient about everything so far," Naofumi exclaimed, almost at his wits' end. "This is something I can't allow to happen! The news said that there could be grimm in there! There's a reason why they fenced it off, you know!"

"But it's the perfect place to practice our semblances!" Itsuki argued. "We can't do it in the city, so we're forced to do it outside! It makes perfect sense!"

Ren pushed his hand against his chin, humming to the idea. "I suppose that is technically true. We won't be causing a commotion from any neighbours if all the neighbours are trees."

"If you're alright with dying, then sure!" Naofumi stamped his feet into the ground towards Ren. It felt like he was the only person thinking logically in this situation. "But here's the thing! I don't want to die! I don't want to see any of you guys dying! It's way too dangerous given the risks!"

He looked over towards Motoyasu who had been turning his head around, thinking more than Itsuki and Ren. As he twisted and turned, he frowned and sighed. "Y-Yeah… I think I have to agree with Nao this time around."

"Thank you."

"The adventure into a dark forest might be fun, but… I don't want to push our luck," he continued.

"Hey, it's not like we'll instantly die if we come across a grimm!" Itsuki exclaimed. "That old man who always visits us said that our semblances are strong! I'm sure that with our strengths added together, a single grimm wouldn't even be an issue!"

"The old man?" Naofumi tilted his head, itching at his memory. "Do you mean Mister Ozpin?"

"He's the only one that visits us on regular intervals! Who else would it be!?"

"Isn't his hair just white?" Motoyasu mulled. "I actually don't think he's that old. I remember some of the orphanage staff talking about him, mentioning that he was in his late twenties or early thirties."

Naofumi wondered about the man himself.

The friends first assumed that he was some type of doctor when they first saw him occasionally in the orphanage, but they never actually interacted with him until three months ago. Once they did, it became quickly obvious that he wasn't any type of doctors that they knew about since he asked to see their semblances. It was an odd request to the group of friends, but they ended up showing the man, one by one. He watched them use it as if he was analysing them, which made Naofumi slightly unnerved.

Apparently, their semblances held unique potential—to whatever that meant. However, Naofumi knew that semblances that helped with healing existed outside of their own little world, so there really wasn't a reason as to why he should have said that. Even Motoyasu's semblance, being the ability to cast fire, a form that had been somewhat common. It made him wonder if there was something more to it.

Nevertheless, this Ozpin character had only visited them a few times so far throughout the last three months. Each time he arrived, he would always ask to see how their semblances were faring. Since the orphanage normally didn't allow for Itsuki, Ren, and Motoyasu to use them normally, Naofumi couldn't understand what the meaning behind having them to show off was if the progression was continuous from the previous session. It slowly started to become eerie in a way, but his friends didn't see anything wrong with it. They were always ecstatic to see Mister Ozpin as it was another day where they could freely use their semblances without being scolded.

"Enough about Mister Ozpin now!" Itsuki announced, breaking Naofumi away from his thoughts. "We're having a tally to decide! It's yay or nay, pick one!"

"Nay." Naofumi had immediately answered with a deadpan expression.

"I'm seriously interested to see how my semblance fares in a real fight," Ren responded. He walked up towards Itsuki's side, looking over his shoulder at Naofumi and Motoyasu. "It's a yay for me."

"It's two to one! It's all up to you, Moto!" Itsuki exclaimed.

Naofumi snapped his neck quickly towards the undecided contestant in this tally game. His eyes were screaming quiet negativity to help influence the decision, something that Motoyasu was able to catch as he started to sweat a little.

"... I… I, uh…"

Naofumi cleared up his voice, pitching it low.

"... Motoyasu."

"Uhm…"

Naofumi narrowed his eyes, focusing all of the pressured attention onto him. Motoyasu tried to avert his gaze, but it clearly wasn't working.

"Don't even think about it."

"Well…"

Motoyasu's entire body was shaking at this point, but as he tried to croak out his words, Naofumi noticed that Motoyasu had been calming down. It seemed like Motoyasu was about to make the right, sane, and rational decision between the two. If Motoyasu declined the offer, then it would have been a tie, forcing the decision to fall onto their side. However—

"I'm sorry, Nao! I always wanted to fight a grimm!"

Motoyasu left him in the dust as he darted over towards Ren and Itsuki.

Naofumi was in disbelief and held his forehead within his hands.

"Goddammit, Motoyasu! You said that we shouldn't be pushing our luck!"

"B-But I also said that an adventure through the forest seemed fun too!"

Naofumi was exasperated at his friends' decision. It really felt like he was the only one that had been rationally thinking. This hadn't been a video game where if they died, they would simply respawn. If they lost their life here, then it was permanent and Naofumi never wanted to see that arise. And yet, his friends were all being upbeat about walking into the jaws of danger.

Naofumi couldn't fathom it.

Itsuki laughed heartily. "It's settled then! We're going!"

"No, please!" Naofumi made one last attempt at convincing them. "It's way too dangerous! We're going to get killed out there!"

With a smug smile, Ren responded. "Not if we kill them first." Ren took a step forwards towards the fence and ran. "Last one in the forest is a rotting grimm!"

As Ren got his unannounced head-start, Itsuki quickly followed. "H-Hey! That's my line!"

Both of the friends started to scale the fence as Motoyasu scampered behind them "H-Hey! Wait for me!"

However, Naofumi held still, speechless, as he watched Ren and Itsuki leap over the fence and as Motoyasu began to scale it. They knew that he absolutely hated this idea, but they were still going straight ahead, stubborn about the potential results.

… These idiots!

He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, furious. Out of all the stupid ideas they had in their lives, this one easily took the first place in that leaderboard. He sighed and shook his head, but that didn't help him release his stored up anger. Everytime his friends did something he didn't like, he simply let it slide, but this was getting extreme.

He started running after them, not out of choice, but out of obligation.

* * *

The night seemed even bleaker through the brushes and leaves.

Naofumi prayed that this had been his imagination and this wasn't some type of omen.

After a few minutes of running, they have reached the main portion of the forest. It was surrounded by a wire fence this time around with even more "Beware of Grimm" warning signs on it. Obviously, the group wouldn't be able to jump this fence like they did with the last one, but if it wasn't clear enough with the extra fencing, the people who were investigating this area really didn't want anyone to stumble into this land by accident—or in this case, trespassing.

Naofumi thought that this would have clued his friends into the fact that they shouldn't have been doing this at all, but Motoyasu ignited a small flame along his hands and approached the wired fence.

"Stand back, guys! I got this!"

As Ren and Itsuki nodded, they complied and took a step back. All in the meanwhile, Naofumi tried to stop him from doing anything more stupid than that. Jumping a fence couldn't be proven, but when there was a burned out section in the fence, that's when things can start to escalate.

"W-Wait! Motoyasu, st—!"

Motoyasu sent out his fire in two streams, hitting the fence with intensive heat with the intention to melt it down. The light from it alone was bright enough to signal someone from afar that there was something occurring here.

However, there was still time until the iron melted into liquid.

"Motoyasu, stop it! We're going to get into a crazy amount of trouble, not just with the orphanage staff, but the people who manage this area of the forest! We're going way too far here!"

He felt a hand held against his shoulder, beckoning Naofumi to glance away momentarily. Itsuki smirked, meeting with Naofumi's distressed expression as if that was supposed to calm him down. Naofumi was tempted to break away and stop Motoyasu from burning down the fence, but Itsuki stopped him.

"Why don't you calm down a bit? It's going to be alright!" The bright cheerfulness strode across through the clear problems they were making. "If things really turn out to be too much for us, we can always retreat! The hole is probably going to be small enough that grimm won't be able to make it through!"

"That's clearly not the problem here, Itsuki! W-Well, it's one of the problems, but still!" Naofumi shook off Itsuki's hand and pleaded towards him and the listeners for once more. "We're destroying this property! We're going to a place where we're not allowed to go! And what if we come across a grimm that's smaller than hole!? Than we would have literally released a grimm into the public!"

"There's still that one fence we jumped," Ren commented.

"That's not the point I'm trying to make here!"

"Look." Itsuki brought down his hands onto each of Naofumi's shoulder and held him tightly. "Don't you ever get bored from always following the rules? You'll never have any types of adventures if you keep abiding by what others tell you! And you can't say it's entirely bad if you never actually tried to experience some rule breaking once in your life! Who knows? Maybe you'll feel great about it if you learned to let loose and have some fun!"

Feel… great… about breaking the rules…?

Naofumi held his tongue and studied the words Itsuki laid out for him. He had always tried to keep his friends in line, mostly from their stupid ideas, and he had always tried to listen to their caretakers as a sense of responsibility. Though, he started to wonder what his life would have been if it weren't for the antics of his friends and his despair of being dragged in.

It would have been bland.

It wouldn't have been interesting.

I wouldn't have been happy.

And as they smiled without many regrets for their mistakes, Naofumi had been the one, twirling his thumbs around, trying to be a good child, but he had to reluctantly agree. He smiled much less than his friends because of it.

He glanced back at Motoyasu, who had just finished breaking down the wire to a liquid mess, and Ren, who had approached the wire and sent out his water-based semblance to cool off the wired ends, ensuring that no one would get burned if he accidentally nudged into it. The redness from the wires faded away as Motoyasu started to roll his wrist around, grinning at a good job well done as Ren smirked, finishing up his end.

They all feel so certain about this and they're all… having fun.

I'm the outlier here.

Naofumi pondered on whether or not Itsuki had been right in his words.

I guess this is what they call as 'biting the bullet'.

"... Alright." Naofumi's shoulder had dropped its tenseness, turning back to Itsuki with a simple frown. "We'll go ahead with your idea and I'll wholeheartedly help out with this grimm extermination job."

"That's what I'm talking about—!"

"But this extermination quest stops at a single one," Naofumi continued, wiping away Itsuki's upbeat excitement by a percentage. "After we take down one grimm, we're going back to the orphanage immediately. Understand?"

Itsuki groaned. "One grimm? That doesn't seem like—"

"One. Grimm."

Itsuki scratched his head through Naofumi's stern words, but he ended up sighing with a disappointed tone. "Fine. We'll only kill one grimm and that will be that."

"You have to promise," Naofumi said, holding out his pinky.

Itsuki hesitated, but through Naofumi's rigidness, Itsuki had to comply unenthusiastically. He met up Naofumi's gesture with his own pinky, wrapping the two fingers together in a small shake and smiling softly at each other, both with different reasons.

"It's a promise, I guess."

I suppose with this, my concerns would lighten a bit...

"Uh, what's taking so long?" Motoyasu called out towards the duo and Naofumi glanced over, seeing that Ren and Motoyasu had already went through the hole they made. "Aren't we going to go find a grimm to take down?"

"Of course!" Itsuki ran towards them while Naofumi slowly followed him.

Maybe this isn't going to be that bad after all…

* * *

Naofumi didn't know how long night usually was, but tonight—it felt exceeding long. Every footstep they took had acted like minutes upon minutes, when in reality, the shadows of the forest casted a mere trickery to the mind where mere seconds had taken place.

In front, Motoyasu led the pack slowly, enlightening the path with a flame on the end of his pointing finger. As the vanguard, Ren and Itsuki held their breaths, cautiously paying attention to their surroundings. Ren's water emerged from his semblance, flowing gracefully around him. At a moment's notice, Ren could transform the elegant poise into a violent strike. On the other side, Itsuki's semblance allowed him to control some rocks he managed to pick along the way, hovering around his body, waiting to be used as bullets.

All in the meantime, Naofumi stayed in the backline, watching the three be much more vigilant as he expected. Despite all of the excitement that they were gleaming with, they were surprisingly taking this rather seriously.

Well, I guess I'll just get ready to give them a defense buff. There really isn't that much I can do in combat, if this was an RPG, I would be a healer. I guess someone has to do it, though I wish I could fight on my own too.

The shown motivation and apparent professionalism was almost enough to sway Naofumi over fully. He had to admit that acting like some type of squadron was slightly exhilarating. Itsuki had been using the term of adventure quite frequently, but if Naofumi had to say, this definitely was worth the title of adventure. His heart had been pounding, but his legs kept following.

It wasn't as if Naofumi hated adventure—he actually liked to enjoy himself with some of the adventurous-story novels that the orphanage had, but his complaints were simply to protect everyone from their own decision-making. However, this risk factor was the same adrenaline that kept his heart pumping so. He'd only wish that they would have taken a risk for something far more nobler than sheer amusement.

"Hey, Motoyasu."

"Huh? What is it?" Motoyasu glanced over his shoulder, hearing Ren's whispers. "Hear something?"

Ren clicked his tongue. "You know, there was a reason I was whispering, but… You know what? It doesn't matter anymore." He shook his head to get the previous notion back at hand. "Anyways, I was wondering how your mana is doing. Not only did you use a considerable amount on that fence, but you've been keeping that fire lit for a while now."

"My flames? I'm doing fine. There's no need to worry about me!"

Naofumi and his friends used the term 'mana' to describe the limits of their semblances. They could only use a certain quantity of their semblance before it requires time to recharge—this applied to Naofumi's supportive semblance as well. They once joked around about it, seeing how closely their limits of their semblances were just that those of gaming where mana was used as the meter for skills and spells. However, the joke-originated term had transformed into an easier way to refer to their limits, so it sorta stuck on to them, even if that wasn't really the technical term for it.

"... Well, if you say so, Motoyasu. You just seem a bit fatigued, that's all. Must be my imagination."

"A-Again, I'm fine!"

"Hold on," Itsuki said, raising his hand. His attention was pulled to the right. "I think I see something."

Motoyasu and Ren immediately turned to face the direction, as Naofumi lagged in action. He tried to make out what Itsuki saw in the distance, but Naofumi's eyesight wasn't as good as Itsuki's. Though, Itsuki's sight was the best out of the group, so that was for granted. The darkened scenery only made things tougher to spot things out, but much to Naofumi's surprise, he manage to notice a moving shadow, slowly trudging through the forest.

"Bingo."

It was soon obvious that whatever the shadow was, it hadn't been human.

"... A boarbatusk?" Naofumi muttered, remembering the image within a book. "So there really were grimm wandering this forest after all. I wonder what it's doing here in the first place."

"It's a grimm," Ren responded. "They hunt for destruction, nothing else. It's what happens when you don't really have much of a soul. It's that reason that cause them to wander around this world, searching for what it wants."

"A textbook answer, huh?"

"Look, I don't think it noticed us yet." Itsuki crept closer to the grimm, beckoning the friends to follow in steps. "We can still get the drop on it."

"Have an idea, Itsuki?"

"Moto, do you still know how to do that?"

"Hell yeah I do."

"Then let's do it. Ren, can you pull its attention when we're almost done charging it?"

"Fine. Guess someone has to do the boring job here."

"Naofumi, keep an eye out for any other grimm and tries to flank us and call us if its coming."

"S-Sure."

As the grimm continued to roam around, Motoyasu and Itsuki tried to keep quiet, though that wouldn't contribute much to hide their presence. Naofumi read once in a book that grimm, although that could detect using their senses, were sensitive to negative emotions. The fact that the boarbatusk hadn't seen them yet meant that not of them were emitting such.

Even Naofumi, who had been pessimistic about the entire adventure, didn't have any negativity—at least, enough to set off the monster.

Reaching a blind spot that was a good distance away and having a good line of sight onto it, Motoyasu intensified his flame, holding it out like some type of net. Itsuki lifted his rocks and aimed his finger towards the flaming barrier, imitating a gun.

"Now, Itsuki!"

"Got it! I'm firing!"

As the shouts roared through the forest, the boarbatusk immediately turned, causing Naofumi to stiffened. He didn't understand the reason that Motoyasu and Itsuki suddenly shouted, but the grimm had its sights on them now, breaking no moment to run forwards.

Unfortunately for the boarbatusk, Itsuki had already been sending his rocks through the barrier. As they passed by, each pebble caught on fire and rained hell onto the incoming grimm. Before it could realize, it was taking on the full extent of their combination attack. It screamed in pain, gouging its last cries. Its fur caught on fire where there had been bruises as it slid to a halt a few meters before them.

It stayed on the ground, writhing around and struggling to stand back up.

… Wait, that was it?

"Let me have this. I want to be a part of this too."

Ren held his hand up, summoning a blade of water above his shoulder. With a lunge, throwing his arm forward, the water blade responded likewise, driving itself straight into the grimm's head.

It stayed on the ground, silent and still until the monster turned into dust. The flaming rocks that were driven into the monster had dropped onto the ground.

… Huh. That… was it.

"Us, one! Grimm, zero!" Itsuki exclaimed in excitement, shooting up a fist in the air.

"That wasn't too bad! That was actually pretty easy!" Motoyasu grinned, contented.

"It was only inevitable that we took it out this quickly," Ren scoffed, smirking himself.

Even Naofumi found himself amused from the defeat of the grimm, even though he didn't contribute anything to the flank.

"It's time for round two!" Itsuki announced. "Who's the next challenger that dares to come across us!?"

"No, no, no," Naofumi said, shaking his head. "That's it for today. We had a promise that we made. If I kept my promise to you to come on this little adventure, then you have to keep your promise at limiting this adventure to one grimm kill."

"What!? But you saw how quickly that went! One more! This time will be the last one!"

"You should be thankful that I even agreed to the whole operation in the first place. Don't be pushing your luck, Itsuki." Naofumi glanced over to where the grimm formerly was, noticing that the rocks Itsuki shot out had still been on fire. It was starting to spread along the grass. "Ren, can you deal with that? We don't want to start a wildfire."

"Yeah, I got it."

Water materialized and glided across the forest according to Ren's command.

As the flamed rocks were being extinguished, he started replaying the entire fight over again. Itsuki had been right—the entire thing took no more than ten seconds to complete. If Naofumi had to admit, seeing them work together to fight in such a manner had his heart pumping, not out of fear, but out of excitement. And considering how professionally his friends dispatched the grimm, he'd say that they were practicing their semblances behind the caretakers' backs.

That only made their chances of success skyrocket from what he initially believed.

"... You know what? Fine. One more grimm wouldn't hurt."

"Hell yeah!" Itsuki smiled triumphantly.

"Though, I don't think we should stray far from where we entered," Motoyasu added on. "Be it as an adventure, I really don't want to get lost. I can barely tell the difference from location to location in here. I don't even know how far we're gone from the fence."

"We haven't gone that far yet," Ren answered, crossing his arms as he finished breaking apart the flames. "My sense of direction is pretty good, even in the darkness. As long as the moon can still provide us the light, so that we're not actually stumbling through, I think we should be fine."

"Well, I don't think we should head out any further," Naofumi said. "We still need to return to the orphanage by sunrise and surely, we don't want to risk increasing the amount of unexpected encounters."

"I guess that's a plan, if anything." Itsuki started walking around, already on the search. "Though, if there's one grimm here, there has to be another one close by. That's how it works, right?"

"That's…" Naofumi pondered for a brief second. "... I'm not entirely sure."

"Well, I mean—that's why we're going to search for them!"

"... No need. Looks like they'll be doing the work for us instead."

Ren turned his head, garnering everyone's attention towards the near distance. Through the shadows of the forest, the zenith of the shattered moon showered the center of their attention, as if it was a spotlight on cue. Red eyes sparked alit as its figure, one that was much bigger than the boarbatusk, began to creep slowly towards them, as it was sizing up its prey or perhaps, imagining how nicely they would taste. It certainly seemed so as the exposed fangs looked to be dripping out a lust to devour, glistening along the somber light.

"... It's… a Beowolf. W-What's something like that doing here!?"

Naofumi's spine had shivered as the atmosphere was completely turned on its head. His breath began to be short-taken. His heart, despite merely standing still, had started to pound, over and over again.

This feeling…

He bit down on his teeth.

… It's bloodlust! A strong one at that…!

Naofumi didn't know how they came across something so quickly like this, but he remembered that Motoyasu and Itsuki both made a really loud shout before they made their attack.

Was it possible that it was attracted by their voices!?

"... Uhm, guys?" Luckily, Naofumi didn't have to say anything to get somebody to believe this was a bad idea. Motoyasu was already on board, looking towards Ren and Itsuki nervously. His footsteps were already making a subtle retreat. "I suddenly don't know about this. M-Maybe we should scram…"

"You really think we can't take this, Motoyasu?" Ren gracefully brought out his water element as he formed it into a blade, aimed towards the slow-pacing grimm. "This is just the next level, isn't it? What's a little difficulty in our adventure anyways?"

"R-Ren!" Naofumi panicked, seeing that his friend was already prepared for an attack. "We shouldn't provoke it! We don't know if it's beyond our limits or—!"

"Take this!"

Ren had already shot the sword as Naofumi tried to parse his warning. With his battle cry resonating through the air, so did the sword as it flung straight towards the grimm. It went faster than Naofumi could notice, but the grimm quickly stood on its two hind limbs and swung forwards, easily breaking his attack.

"...!"

Ren widened his eyes, and gritted his teeth. In quick succession, he launched a few more. However, each one was blocked and knocked away, starting to leave a frustrated Ren in its wake. If anything, the only results were that Ren's mana was used and the Beowolf seemed to only be angered.

The grimm howled into the night sky and started its trek against the four friends. Only this time, it hadn't been analyzing anything.

It's coming fast!

"Split!"

Ren's command caused the four friends to leap out of the way as the Beowolf charged right through. It locked onto Ren and curved its trajectory, closing in quickly onto the black-haired youth. He hadn't even recovered from his roll yet, but he was already charging up another water blade.

A direct hit land onto the head, but it didn't make a difference. Using its arm, it struck Ren and flung him across the forest, forcing a roll before his body hit a tree.

Although in normal circumstances, he would be passed out from the impact—he was still conscious. There was a light green aura that had reflected against the moonlight covered Ren just as he was about to get hit. It was a sign and a result that Naofumi was able to cast his defensive support portion of his semblance in the nick of time.

"Ren!"

"He'll be fine, Itsuki! Focus on the fire rock trick again!"

"A-Ah…! G-Got it!"

Motoyasu rushed close to and unleashed his flaming barrier once again. Itsuki scouted for rocks he could use, resorting to a few from the distance, and readied another barrage of their combination attack.

"I'm firing now!"

The rocks went through as presumed, launching the array towards the grimm for another direct hit. Ren's water might have been weaker in comparison to their combination attack, but as it landed exactly how it did for the Boarbatusk, the Beowolf shook it off with little damage taken. If anything, it looked like it was annoyed.

It shook off the burning rocks like dust on its shoulders, flinging them towards the bushes and trees.

They started to spread, catching the leaves and trunks on fire. Nevertheless, the Beowolf simply glared at them, not thinking about the collateral it just caused.

"Oh shit, oh shit!"

"Oh no, this is really bad!"

Ren stood back up with Naofumi assistance and he immediately threw himself back into the fray, but sending his water over to the kindlings of a wildfire. He tried his best to keep up, but the shaken rocks had been spread out too vastly. Eventually, one of the bushes caught entirely on fire and it was starting to share its newfound warmth quickly.

"I can't extinguish this! The fire is spreading more quickly than I can take out!"

Hearing the defeat of the attempted douse, Motoyasu placed himself into a panic mode, immediately shooting out fireballs repeatedly without a care for if it was hitting the grimm or the background. Those that did hit the grimm were still brushed aside.

"This isn't going down! I don't think we can take this grimm on, Itsuki!"

"G-Group up! We need to group up and replan!"

"Right!"

Motoyasu started to run as he fired out the barrage, nudging Itsuki to follow through—as if he needed instructions. The fireballs weren't doing much, but it appeared that it was briefly stunning the Beowolf. Even Itsuki sent a few pebble bullets over towards the grimm in an attempt to help.

"Well, that just escalated!" Itsuki exclaimed as he caught up to Ren and Naofumi. "Any plans!?"

Naofumi looked back and forth, seeing both the flames catching onto the trees and the Beowolf that was being assaulted—probably would have been better to use the term tickling—by Motoyasu's attacks. It was like in a snap of a finger, the place turned to hell.

How the hell did it go so wrong so quickly!?

I was the one with the most common sense here! How was I even swayed by the mood so heavily!?

"W-We have to escape! We need to lose this grimm quickly!"

"What about the fire!?"

"We don't have a way to take care of it now! Ren's water can't keep up! We have to leave! That's only option here!"

"Grah!" Motoyasu's flame assault suddenly stopped as he backed off with a few steps, shaking his hands dramatically. "Dammit! I thought I could do that for longer!"

"Did your mana run out!?"

"N-No, my hands are just really numb now! Though, with the fireworks I shot at the Beowolf, I wouldn't be surprised if I was running low!"

The Beowolf growled once it was freed from Motoyasu's onslaught pressure, shaking from the few flames it caught on it blacken pelt. It glared at the four friends angrily as he dropped on all four limbs and started a hasten rush. It was using its skull as a battering ram, trying to mow down anything and anyone in its path.

"Split again!"

As Naofumi, Ren, and Motoyasu leapt out of the projected path, only Itsuki remained. His eyes were locked with the red gleam from the grimm's pupils, frozen in terror. It consumed him as Naofumi noticed that Itsuki had wanted to move so desperately, shaking his legs and nudging his own body to jump, but he couldn't commit to the action.

Ren and Motoyasu shot back a dreadful glance.

"Itsuki, what are you doing?!" "Jump quickly, Itsuki!"

Naofumi shouted his heart out.

"Itsuki!"

No matter what was called to him, it was like he couldn't hear them.

The Beowolf didn't care. It sped up regardless, drawing closer and closer towards the frozen target.

"Itsuki!"

Naofumi's heart stopped for a moment, as his surroundings started to feel more distant to him. He started feeling as if time had slowed down. It was like there was the sound of a clock ticking endlessly, never reaching its origin.

It was painful to see this scene that was going to unfold before him. Ren was lucky that he got flung across an arm from little created momentum. The damage done wouldn't have killed him, but Naofumi watched as the steps crept closer towards his friend. With the speed it had and the thick mask-like face it used as a weapon, there was no way that Itsuki could survive an impact like that, even if he had casted his defensive semblance onto him.

Even so—

—I can't.

—I can't lose you, Itsuki.

—Even if you get on my nerves sometimes,

—you're part of the family that I never had.

—I… I…

—I don't want to lose you.

Naofumi's tears started to run down his face on the sheer thought that he was going to lose Itsuki on an adventure that he shouldn't have been more adamant on not having. If he hadn't been so easily influenced, he could have stopped them one way or another. That was the belief he held onto and the belief that led he to think that this was his fault.

—I caused Itsuki's death.

However, through the coldness that was his despair and the heat that was the surroundings, Naofumi felt his heart beat a single time in the still state of his perspective. It was as if it was calling out to him, trying to urge Naofumi to break out of his own paralysis.

A voice, almost robotic in nature, had been the one that reached out.

[The shield is a being that buries his trust among the others.]

—Who's there?

[The shield is a being that protects those that he believes in.]

—Who's speaking?

[The shield is a being that takes on fate and challenges it with steel determination.]

—Who are you?

[Believe that you are strong. Believe that your allies are strong. Let them believe that you are strong.]

[That is your power. That is your shield against all odds.]

—My… power?

[Protect those that believe in you. Protect those you believe in. Protect those you love.]

[Now run.]

[Run.]

[Run.]

Run.

—Run.

Naofumi gritted his teeth as his heart started to pound faster than it has ever had in its lifetime.

—NOW RUN!

With the flow of time returning to normal, Naofumi kicked off from his place and rushed over in an instant. His heart had been warm—no, saying that it was warm hadn't been enough. It was brighter than any of the flames that could take on this forest and it burned with a glaze so intense, it placed the surroundings destruction to shame.

He stopped in front of Itsuki and before the attacking Beowolf and turned to face the grimm directly, crossing his arms in a defiant stance. Ren and Motoyasu were taken back from the sight, widening their eyes in the unbelievable scenery.

—I won't let you die!

—Not here!

—Not ever!

The burning feeling started to spread throughout Naofumi's body, extending towards his arms specifically. It was as if they were going to explode, but Naofumi didn't mind it.

—I will protect you!

—I will save you!

—Itsuki, I will become your shield!

He welcomed the feeling as the Beowolf collided with his arms.

Naofumi roared.

"GRAHHHHHHH!"

He roared his burning feeling out from his soul.

"Naofumi!" "Nao!"

* * *

**_To Be Continued_**

* * *

**_Welcome to Remnant Heroes (RIMN)!_**

**_A fic in which we will have a team consisting of the four cardinal heroes from ROTSH that will live through their very own adventures in the world of RWBY!_**

**_Unlike in ROTSH, where they are basically enemies, here they will be an actual team and friends, just like in my other fic about them [Four Heroes]_**

**_I just really wanted the four of them in RWBY, why? I don't even know, just seemed like a cool concept to me._**

**_A few words of explanation in terms of their semblances:_**

**_\- I just really wanted to have them still have their weapons, since it's their thing, though it was hard finding a good explanation for that, so I decided to go with the boring route of 'Yeah, it's just a semblance'_**

**_\- Their semblaces are two-parters since they also get some degree of 'magic' with the elements they have affinities to in their story._**

**_If you still have any questions feel free to ask me via review or PM!_**

**_I would like to give special thanks to [Pretty Lazy] , who helped tremendously by beautifying what I wrote, and fleshing it out. Thanks to them this fic feels much better and natural than what I would've done by myself, so be sure to check their profile out, as they also have some cool fics there._**

**_Also, just as always, leaving any feedback on where we could improve would be very appreciated._**

**_Rating is T, but may change in the future._**

**_I guess that's it for now._**

**_Anyway, I hope you liked it._**

**_Cya!_**


	2. Prologue 2

The night was dark, only to be awoken by a howling flame within the forest. The crackling of the flames had started to consume all that were unfortunate to have been in touch, illuminating even the sky above, but even through the sounds of the plants being reduced to ashes and the animals escaping the destruction of their habitat, a certain sound managed to erupt cleanly despite the chaos.

A loud sound of weight colliding with steel had vibrated through the air.

… _Huh?_

Naofumi's adrenaline had worn off, allowing him to realize what he had just done. He leapt in front of Itsuki, trying to take the attack head-on in his place. That in itself was something pulled out of a story, but the notion itself was idiotic in reality. Naofumi didn't have anything to gain by using himself as a shield for Itsuki in this scenario. The Beowolf would have ran through the both of them without hesitation.

… The Beowolf _should have_ ran through the both of them without _struggle_.

"What the hell is that…?"

"Nao, what did you just…?"

The grimm was having trouble trying to push Naofumi back. It collided with his arms, trying to push forwards and Naofumi felt it. He felt the heaviness that the grimm was trying to force onto him and the dirt that Naofumi's feet were pressed into was definite proof of that.

However—

—between Naofumi's arm and the Beowolf's head—

—_was a shield_, one with a lustrous green light shining from its front.

**NAOFUMI IWATANI**

**[The Hero of the Shield]**

…_Words? What the heck?_

As fast and sudden as it appeared, it faded away without Naofumi even realizing that he didn't quite register what had shown up before him. His mind was too concerned with the sudden shield that appeared on his person and the beast that had been behind it.

"Motoyasu, don't just stand there like an idiot! Help him out!"

"Y-Yeah!"

From his perspective, fire balls and water blades started to shower and converge from both sides onto the grimm, looking to have stun the Beowolf even further than what it was. The weight dropped off from Naofumi and through a sense of instinct, he lunged forwards and pushed the Beowolf off of him—

"_Get off and go away_!"

—only to find out that there had been a meaning of too much strength.

His body was able to thrust the grimm across the forest, breaking down burning trees with ease as it slid to a stop in the distance. It was far from dead, as it came to shake off Naofumi's disengage, but this gave them the personal space that they desperately needed.

Ren and Motoyasu ran back to Naofumi and Itsuki. Ren slapped his hand against Itsuki's back to snap him out of the trance while Motoyasu blankly stared at Naofumi's mysterious shield.

"What the hell just happened? What even is that thing!?"

"We'll talk about it later!" Ren cut in. "Itsuki, Naofumi! Are you two alright!?"

"Y-Yeah…"

"S-Sorry, Nao. I didn't mean to…"

"It's fine," Naofumi told Itsuki, who had been recollecting himself. "Everyone's safe. At least, for now. That Beowolf is still kicking, so there's no time to be dwindling around!"

"It's probably going to rush straight through anyways. We need to leave immediately!"

"Wait, Itsuki." Naofumi noticed that the flames were consuming the tree in a great speed, eating up the trunks. This was normal, but he had an idea to buy them even more time. "Itsuki, aim your rocks at the trees to block its pathing. It can't detect us if it's surrounded by smoke and its sight is covered by burning obstacles."

"Got it!"

Itsuki took up a few pebbles that were along the ground and aimed all of them where he was told. In mere moments the trees collapsed at the breaking point, obscuring their vision of the Beowolf in the burning terrain.

"C'mon, let's scram!" Motoyasu exclaimed. "The fence is… this way?"

"That way," Ren corrected, pointed to a slightly different angle.

The four friends nodded, darting alongside Ren's directional instructions. Motoyasu kept looking over his shoulder, not thinking that the Beowolf was going to be kept busy for much longer.

"Oh shit, we are so _dead_!"

"Honestly, even if we live through this, the caretakers are probably going to be the ones to kill us instead. It's whether or not we're choosing the lesser of two evils or not at this point."

"That's a terrible mindset, Ren! Back me up on this one, Nao!" Motoyasu shot a glance over to Naofumi, though it looked as he was distracted by something. "... Nao?"

Their voices were echoing in the background, as Naofumi's ears were ringing. Even without that, his attention was primarily pulled over to what had been suddenly appearing before his eyes. In the upper left corner of his peripheral, there was a simplified icon of a shield alongside his full name written beside it. There were three bars below it, coloured in green, blue, and yellow respectively. There were also a bunch of other icons that were scattered just before his vision's boundaries, but informational overload existed alongside the panic of the situation. He had no time to register it all and figure out what they could mean.

However, from what Naofumi saw at a glance—

—it really seemed like a heads-up display from a video game. The green bar would have represented his health, and the blue and yellow bars looked to be his ability resources, but it was quickly starting to sound ridiculous. He had never heard of a phenomenon like this before.

_Is it possible that this is a part of my semblance?_

A distinct howl brought Naofumi back to reality and what followed were similar howls coming in the far distance. It hadn't been nearby, but if it was what they thought it was, the gap could be easily closed.

"That noise…! It's calling for its friends!"

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"

"We could barely deal with one! How are we getting out of this one!?"

"Don't think! Just run!"

They all pivoted and started to make a break, rushing to trace the path that they took to enter the forest—as much as they could remember in the hectic turn of events. The flames had already spread to a massive level, increasing only thanks to the grimm that push the flames further out. Despite being the depths of night, Naofumi could have sworn there was enough light behind him to fill with the sky.

Through the crackling of the burning scenery, Naofumi looked over his shoulder to see that the beowolf didn't follow them and to hear that the howls had stopped. It didn't exactly help unnerve him, however. If anything, it was more eerie to think that some type of grimm could jump out from any direction thanks to that alert.

"It looks like…" Itsuki took a few heavy breaths through his words. His legs looked as if they were still trying to resist the original fear. "Looks like… they're not following us…"

"Y-Yeah…" Motoyasu, on the other hand, must have thought the coast was clear, slowing down almost to a stop. "That was… pretty close…"

"Don't stop moving. Don't slow down." Ren took a hard brake and glared at the two friends. "We're still in an area where grimm could show up and considering its call, I'd say that slowing down is the best way to get killed here."

"My legs… I can't feel a thing in them…!" Itsuki complained.

"That's good. Then you won't feel the fatigue or pain that comes with pushing your muscles past their limits."

"That's not what it—!" Itsuki sighed as his picked up his pace. "Never mind. I don't want to die."

"... Nao?"

He turned to Motoyasu. "What is it?"

"Carry me."

"As much as I would like to, I'm feeling tired too."

Naofumi found it fascinating that Motoyasu could joke like that in a time like this.

… At least, Naofumi _thought _he was trying to crack a joke.

* * *

_How much longer must the night go on?_

Ren didn't think too much when Itsuki had offered the adventure to the group. In fact, Ren thought it was a good idea to go out without being bounded by the rules every ten seconds. Considering how they were able to get Naofumi on board, and then _back_ _on board again_, he would have considered their adventure to be successful upon slaying a few grimms. He didn't even think they were anything much, seeing how young hunters and huntresses over at the esteemed Beacon Academy could slay them with relative ease.

… Though, he supposed that televised reports might not be the best source of information since it's second-hand knowledge. Either that or they really got unlucky encountering such an irregularly powered grimm.

Ren brought his friends over to the wired fence, as he led them with his mental map. However, he was genuinely surprised to see that the hole that Motoyasu made hadn't been there anymore, nor was it anywhere in the visible distance along the fence. He was sure that this was the way—holes in fences don't simply patch themselves up after all.

He heard a collapse behind him as he darted his head over.

Itsuki was on all four limbs, knees and palm, gasping for the air to return to his lungs. Sweat dripped down, both from exhaustion and temperature, into the somber grass field. It sounded like even breathing had been painful for him as Ren noticed that even his arms had been shaking.

Motoyasu waddled over towards the fence, falling over so that it caught him. Despite its varying surface, he still slid down slowly. At some point, his hair tie had broken off. His hair, glossed from the sweat, had been let out and Motoyasu was careful enough not to get it tangled up in the fence as he dropped onto his tailbone.

Naofumi had still been standing. Other than himself, Ren did recall that Naofumi had the most perseverance out of the group, but even he was struggling to stand up properly.

"... Are we… Are we out yet?" Itsuki rasped through his dry throat.

"Not yet. We still need to get through the fence."

"... Wasn't there… a hole I made?"

"There was, but we must have taken a wrong step somewhere. Sorry, Motoyasu. You're going to have to make a new hole for us. Do you have enough mana for that?"

Motoyasu pulled himself up, though it was clear that he was tired, sore, fatigued, and any other synonyms that Ren could pull out from the thesaurus. However, Motoyasu's expression showed enough determination through the weakened state.

"I can… If that means we're getting out of here safely, I'll even move pass my mana capacity…"

"Hopefully, none of the grimms followed us here. If they do..." As Motoyasu picked a place to make a new hole, Ren turned his attention back towards Naofumi who had been bringing back a new item in his hands. "Then Naofumi can help defend using that… shield. Though, while the situation is calmer now, I have to ask. Where the hell did you even get that? You jumped in front to block the attack for Itsuki and it just… _appeared_."

"... I'm not entirely sure myself." Naofumi pulled himself up straight and leered downwards to the equipped right arm. There was a green orb lodged in the middle of the silver shield. "I… I just wanted to protect Itsuki and I felt a rush come through my body. When the rush ended, I came to with this shield on my person. I'm even seeing these weird things in my sight now, kinda like one of those interfaces in a game."

"_Seriously_?"

"I'm telling the truth here! I really do see it and it's still there!"

"No, I'm not doubting you, Naofumi. After all, the shield _did_ literally appear out of nowhere."

Ren took a second to think about it. The truth was that it wasn't that unbelievable or anything out of left-field. In some cases, people discover their semblances in extreme situations, with adrenaline surging through their veins. Thus, he wouldn't have thought twice about Naofumi and a semblance to summon a shield for his utility. _That _part that it came out of nowhere wasn't that unusual.

Ren's head had been held onto the fact that Naofumi had _already_ awakened his semblance and the ability to summon a shield was nowhere _close_ to what the original semblance was. He already had his ability to heal wounds of others and to boost their bodies' durability. Both of them had similar relevance to each other. However, Ren couldn't piece together where the shield had come into play. It hadn't even been a spell type, so to speak.

_Then... what is this shield?_

_Is it even a semblance at this point, a second one or… is it an extension of Naofumi's original semblance?_

However, Ren's train of thought took another direction.

He remembered that Ozpin told them that their semblances held potential and that they should learn how to use them, despite the restrictions placed upon by the staff. Ren never understood the contradiction, but something else that he didn't understand was that the man said that their semblances were similar.

Ren's semblance was the creation and manipulation of water. Motoyasu's semblance had been the ability to wield fire to his desires and limits. Itsuki could control rocks and shot them at high velocities. Naofumi can cast healing and supportive help—at least, that was what Ren _thought_ it was.

Right now, Naofumi showed that there was one more to his list—summoning a damn shield out of thin air. Ren looked over to the shield, but glanced over to an empty palm of his.

_If what Ozpin says is right and our semblances were similar… Could I summon a shield too? Or would it be something else…?_

"Don't worry, Ren." Naofumi continued on from where he left off. "If a grimm comes, I'll definitely protect you guys. You can count on me!"

There was almost a smirk laid across Naofumi's expression. If he didn't know any better, Ren would have guessed that Naofumi was the one who wanted to go on the adventure whereas Itsuki had been the one dragged along. He knew that Naofumi lived more quietly compared to them, so throwing him into the fray must have awakened some type of excitement switch in his brain, but he could have been trying hard not to show it. Naofumi was considerate, and seeing how traumatized Itsuki was feeling, he must have been holding them all back.

_Besides, I bet Naofumi is still as traumatized as Itsuki is right now._

A loud howl broke the tension, or rather—it would have been _adding_ to the tension. Ren felt his heart pound heavily, feeling that emotion of fear stabbed right through it. He looked over towards Motoyasu and he hadn't even been a fraction of the way done their escape. However, Ren noticed the lines that Motoyasu traced out.

Motoyasu couldn't even burn through them like he did the first time around.

His flames' had grown weak.

"I c-can't…" Motoyasu arms were shaking, maybe out of fear, maybe out of frustration. "My flames won't burn at a higher temperature to cut through!"

"Damn it! That only leaves us to find out where that original hole was! But… how long would that take…?"

"Uh… guys? I think we have a bigger problem here."

As Ren considered the options, Naofumi looked over towards the distance. A beowolf had been standing on its hind legs, glaring at them with a severe hatred. Even though they couldn't deal effective damage, the burn marks that Motoyasu previously left and the bruises that must have came from Naofumi sending it backwards had presided.

It seemed like either the grimm were so destruction-favoured that they forsake their own well-being or they understood the notion of vengeance and anger.

Not that it mattered to Ren. At this point, saying who the fault would fall upon had been quite childish and irrational to think about. If anything, it was clear that no one in the group had been pointing fingers.

Survival was much more important at this moment.

And in a fight-or-flight situation where their flight had been locked away as an option—

_What a persistent creature._

—there only remained the option to _fight_.

"Motoyasu, you can still use your flames, right? It's not like you're completely locked out of it."

Motoyasu's shaking arms were to their limits, but he looked over to Ren and clenched his fist. He wasn't the smartest person he knew, not by far, but even he should know what Ren was implying. Even so, there was no faltering from his voice.

"... _Yeah_. I think so."

"Alright," Ren nodded, taking a step forwards. "We have to do this. We've got no other choice. The grimm is faster than us and if we run, we're going to be caught eventually."

Itsuki stood up as Ren took his stance. He was tired, but he managed to catch enough of his strength to walk into this fight with his two legs on the ground. Motoyasu crept up from the fence and cradled his flame in both palms. Naofumi hadn't been taking the backlines like last time. Naofumi took one more step before the line of friends and held his shield outwards.

"I'll be your shield and your protection. Just focus on taking down that grimm!"

Ren and Itsuki activated their semblances and hovered their respective elements around them as the grimm began to ready itself for its assault.

"Aren't you getting too into this?"

"Ren, I just want us to get out of here _alive_."

"... Well said, Naofumi. Then make sure that happens."

As the beowolf charged at them, both Ituski and Ren fired off their semblance attacks at the creature, which once again didn't bring any results. Rocks bounced off of the creature's partially burned fur while Ren's water blades just splashed on it, merely soaking the monster. He was able to make small scratches from what he could see, but clearly not enough to slow it down.

Motoyasu held out his arm and starting shooting out his fire. However, there was a clear deterioration of his targeting. Even with its straight pathing, Motoyasu could only hit the area that it would have been going to.

"Motoyasu, get a hold of yourself!"

"S-Sorry. E-Everything just seems… _blurry_."

Motoyasu never took any heavy attacks from any grimm, but he was already acting like he was going to collapse. Ren recalled Motoyasu and his usage of his semblance. Even if what Motoyasu said about having his semblance being all good before they started the fight, he used a _lot_ of fire during the fight. He might have the most destructive element out of the group, but he can use it for a lot less time.

However, the beowolf slowed down as the flames started to spread along the ground, acting like a small barrier between them, stopping before it could get past. Even though it was an unintentional shot, that hesitation in the monster's eyes gave Ren an idea.

He reached out for Motoyasu's arm, wrapping his own arms around it.

"Motoyasu, focus on firing! I'll aim for you!"

"Are Moto's weakened flames going to do anything!?"

"It doesn't matter. That grimm can't tell the difference between temperatures, at least at a first inspection. I'll use Motoyasu's flames to surround the grimm before it realizes the truth. In the meantime, grab its blind spots!"

Ren's mind wandered back to when Naofumi had pushed the grimm back when he unleashed that shield. The strength was enough to break down multiple trees. On the other side, the fence behind them was designed to prevent any blunt strikes that the grimm could use in their attempts to invade the city.

"Naofumi, I want you to send that beowolf flying towards Motoyasu and I."

"H-Huh? What!?"

"Just listen! Don't worry about us!"

"... Got it!"

Flinching slightly from Ren's sudden command, Motoyasu still regained his energy through brute force and started firing his flames blindly, screaming as he shot them in a nonstop manner. As Ren curve the angle to surround the grimm's position with flames, Itsuki and Naofumi ran towards the side with Itsuki picking up as many rocks and pebbles as he could.

As the grimm was too distracted by the present flames, the flanking group reached the backside. Naofumi took a knee in front of Itsuki as the latter aimed his countless bullets into his target. Ren had been preparing himself, sending a water spear over towards the fence and holding them up there. However, Motoyasu's flame stream had deteriorated greatly.

Regardless, Motoyasu kept it up as Ren focused for the both of them.

His head snapped right over towards Itsuki.

"Itsuki, _now_!"

As Itsuki started his accelerated gatling attack, Ren redirected the flame stream into a direct attack. It probably do anything, but any chip damage was _good_ chip damage. _Everything_ needed to be done to wear it down.

The flying rocks managed to make the beowolf stagger forwards, dividing its attention along the two attacks. When Ren saw the beowolf getting thrown off its balance—

—"It's your turn! Naofumi!"

"Here I come!"

As the bullets rained past Naofumi, he kicked off his position and dashed forwards with his weight shifted all into the shield. The gap between closed in and—

"_Take this!_"

—Naofumi bashed the shield, clocking at an alarming speed and sent the grimm flying towards Ren and Motoyasu. Ren released his grip on Motoyasu's arm and held his palm along his friend's skull, pushing the both of them down below the small gap that the grimm had opened up between itself and the ground.

The beast flew right over their heads and into right his water spear. It quickly crumbled underneath its impact, crashing into the fence behind it. As Ren expected, as brutal strike like that wasn't even enough to dent the surface.

He didn't think twice—there was no time to—as Ren took Motoyasu's arm around his neck and sent a stream of water, blasting them away from the fence and back towards Naofumi and Itsuki. They rolled over each other, halting to a stop thanks to Naofumi stopping them.

Saliva collected up within Ren's mouth, puking it all out as he struggled to stand back up.

His eyes gazed upwards, as did everyone else, toward the grimm that had been in the same position as Ren. It looked tired and frustrated, or perhaps that was what it seemed like in Ren's perspective. However, he noticed that there was a faded liquid dripping down between its legs, most likely from its back—

—_where the water spear had landed_.

"It's bleeding. _It's beatable_," Ren muttered. "_We can kill it._ We just need a _bit_ more!"

The grimm's red eyes glared brightly.

Even if it was in pain, it still held onto its straightforward strategy and ran forwards for its prey.

Both Motoyasu and Itsuki flinched, but Ren couldn't blame them. Even he thought its movements would have been slightly hindered, but it kept going through its injuries at full capacity.

However, Naofumi ran to match it in the middle.

"I won't..." A similar glint sparked within Naofumi's eyes. "I won't let you hurt them! They're my friends…! They're my brothers...!"

Naofumi covered himself in his green light, strengthening his resolve and his defense as he collided with the grimm in a loud impact. Unfortunately, the grimm, for what they didn't expect out of it, was learning. Meeting the shield's surface with its skull, it took its arms and took a heavy grip onto Naofumi's shield and toss him aside into a nearby tree, almost breaking it down.

And it kept going.

"Nao!"

"Damn it!"

Ren prepared himself to attack the grimm as it came closer, but he was starting to worry.

He didn't have a shield like Naofumi or any of his defensive support. If he couldn't stop the enemy here, it was over for the three of them. He started to summon as many water blades as he could and started to fire them one by one.

Nothing was working.

It didn't slow down.

Ren started to freak out. His fear was starting to control him until—

"HERE IT GOES!"

Motoyasu took a mighty step forwards next to Ren and aimed both of his arms at the incoming grimm, standing with his heart on the line. He couldn't understand what he was trying to do. His friend was on the brink of his mana capacity and couldn't even aim properly.

Nevertheless, the friend that had been standing right beside him looked as if he had been revital—

—_No. That's not it._

_Motoyasu was putting his everything into this one attack! If he does that, he'll seriously be injured by his own recoil! This idiot!_

"Motoyasu, don't—!"

It was too late.

"My all-or-nothing attack! HELLFIRE!"

An explosion practically occurred right next to Ren's ears, almost deafening his sense as a beam of fire was unleashed from his hands. The attack was incredible with heat that was definitely higher than before—but it wasn't anything near the heat that cooked them the entryway. However, it was big and wide, completely devouring the grimm in one complete horizontal pillar. Ren noticed its shadow being pushed back from the force as Motoyasu screamed at the top of his lungs.

All Itsuki and Ren could do was watch as the grimm was lifted from the ground, being sent back against the fence in one loud crash.

The fire dispersed.

They've gotten their distance, but the beowolf was shaking it itself off, most likely disoriented from the unbelievable attack. It was distracted from its pain, growling in a low tone and shaking, buying them some more time.

… _You stopped it, Motoyasu_. _At least, for now._

As Ren looked over to his blonde friend, he slowly widened his eyes.

Motoyasu had looked the weakest he had ever been in Ren's life. His skin was pale, his eyes were dead, and his movements were very limited. All Motoyasu did in his last stroke was turn his head to Ren.

"..._ I'm leaving this… up to you three… I believe… you can… find a... way… out… of… h..._"

—_here_.

Motoyasu collapsed without even finishing his last word.

"Motoyasu!"

Naofumi had recovered from the attack and ran straight over for his friend. He immediately casted his healing semblance over to Motoyasu, but it was no good. No matter how much Naofumi amplified his semblance, he wasn't waking up.

"Motoyasu! Wake up!"

"It's no use! That idiot really pushed himself this time around!" Ren responded. "All we can do is carry him out of here, but that means beating this _damn_ grimm!"

"W-What do we do, Ren!?"

"I'm thinking, Itsuki!" Ren grabbed his head, scratching it in frustration and anxiety. "I'm trying to think here! Just shut up and let me think!"

"B-But!" Itsuki's finger pointed straight at where the beowolf should be. "It's recovered and looking _right at us_!"

Ren's expression turned into despair as the drool from the grimm dropped onto the ground. The grimm can detect negative emotions and the Ren had completely forgotten in the midst of his thoughts. It _knew_ that Ren wasn't thinking straight anymore and scratched the ground before it made one more charge.

"This time, I won't let it past me!"

Naofumi met with the grimm, clashing its head with his shield, but this time, Naofumi was careful to not let the monster control his movements. Instead of holding his shield in one spot, he took the shield and struck forwards, pulling back to repeat the process, meeting with its various attempts to grab the shield from the sides. Sparks were flying high with the claws and steel.

He was putting up a good fight, but Ren could tell that Naofumi couldn't keep it up for much longer. All he was doing was defending. Impressed on how quickly Naofumi adapted to the patterns, Ren still knew that it was only a matter of time before the beowolf _crushed_ his parrys and throw him away like the last time.

And yet, Ren didn't know what he could be doing now.

He said that it was beatable, but if it took this much effort to make it bleed by only _a little_, then he didn't know what more they could pull out that could kill the threat.

Time was ticking.

Their deaths were inevitable.

They couldn't kill this monster.

They were _weak_.

_I'm weak. I couldn't do anything towards that monster other than prick it in the back._

He looked over to Motoyasu, who was lying unconscious with his face down. The fallen friend's efforts gave them more room to breath and he placed his soul into his final attack. He wasn't even considering his own livelihood, even if pushing his limits was a stupid and dangerous thing to do.

Even so, Motoyasu had tried.

On the other side, Itsuki was trying his hardest to lift some rocks in order to throw them at the Beowolf and help Naofumi out, but it was clear that he was struggling. There was no way that Itsuki could control his semblance under these stressful conditions.

Even so, Itsuki was still trying.

Ren then looked at Naofumi again, who was still blocking beowolf's blows, even though he was clearly on the losing end. He was starting to slip his parrys, but his movements showed clear determination despite the odds. He truly wanted to protect them, even if it cost him his life, just as he jumped in front of Itsuki.

Even so, Naofumi was still trying.

As Ren watched in agony, the monster finally managed to flick Naofumi's back, sending his body past Itsuki and Ren as it prepared the final assault. As it accelerated towards them, Ren's life flashed before his eyes.

_It was a simple life. All they had to do was worry about what they were eating, what they were doing, what chores and what work they needed to get done by the end of the day. All they wanted to do was to find a family that would adopt them, but until then, they stayed together as a group, going through this life of theirs together._

_..._

"_We're friends, right?"_

_Ren looked over to Motoyasu as the four orphans had been lying down around the front yard of the building. The night sky was beautiful that day and the staff members allowed the group to do some stargazing as long as they were back in their beds by midnight. The refreshing breeze has brushed through his hair as Ren pulled himself upwards in a confusion._

"_What the hell brought this up?"_

"_Well, we never actually said it out loud, right? Our status with each other, that is."_

_Itsuki turned his head, laying comfortable along the grass. "Friends… Saying that kinda seems weird. We don't even know our parents, but to say we have friends…"_

_Naofumi was smiling on the edge of the group, continuing to stare into the night sky. "Honestly, I think we're closer than that. If friends aren't enough, then consider this. We help each other out. We have fun with each other. We live with each other. I'd actually say we're closer than normal friends."_

"_Closer… than normal friends, huh?" _

_Ren muttered the thought. Honestly, he assumed he was alone in this world after being abandoned by the ones that brought him here in the first place. He was an orphan and he considered that as a fact that would follow his mind. He doubted anyone would truly want to take in a stranger's child that they left. He didn't think he even had a family and it was likely that it was meant to be this way_—_a curse of his birth. However, there were children that were already there and children that came in that tried to be friendly. Even if he instinctively pushed them away, they still surrounded him until he was forced to let them break down his walls._

_He was scared about being thrown out again._

… _Nevertheless, he enjoyed his new lifestyle. He couldn't even remember what his parents' faces looked like anymore._

"_But," Naofumi interrupted his own ideas, "what do you think would happen if one of us gets adopted? Wouldn't we be separated there?"_

"_I wouldn't worry about that," Motoyasu exclaimed. "When that comes, we'll think about it! Besides, we're definitely friends."_

"_... Why did you even ask then, you idiot?"_

"_I just wanted to know how everyone else thinks about it! Obviously, I already know we're friends! Even when one of those days come when we have to say goodbye, I don't think it'll be the end!" Motoyasu kicked himself up and spun to face his friends, pulling their attention of the stars away. "I heard something on the television once. 'Friends always stick together and make it through together!' I'm sure we'll see each other again one day!"_

"_Motoyasu. That's not… what the quote means."_

"_It sounds nice though!"_

_Ren sighed with Motoyasu's interaction with Naofumi. _

"_Although, I guess it still applies to our mindset. What the quote really means is something we should think about each other too."_

_Motoyasu smiled. Itsuki smiled. Naofumi smiled._

_Even Ren had to smirk a little too as Naofumi went on._

"_That quote means_—_"_

_..._

Naofumi rebounded himself quickly and collided with the beowolf, pushing his muscles into the strike. He threw his shoulder over, unleashing a counter that pushed the grimm backwards, but not far. Naofumi was running out of breath, falling over onto a knee as he kept his eyes alerted.

"... It's useless. I don't think we can beat it," Naofumi concluded. His back remained turned away from the group. "... Ren, Itsuki. Take Motoyasu and get out of here. Go find that opening somewhere. It still exist _somewhere _along the fence. I'll buy as much time as you need!"

"What the hell!?" Ren couldn't contain his disbelief. "Are you trying to sacrifice yourself like some type of hero!?"

"... I only want to protect my friends. Nothing heroic about something as selfish as that, right?"

The grimm pounced back and attacked Naofumi's shield. He gritted his teeth through the pain—Ren noticed that he didn't put up another green layer from his semblance—as he slowly met blows.

"Go! Find that exit!"

"N-Nao…" Itsuki was confused, not knowing what to do.

Ren knew the feeling, but he didn't want it.

He desperately wanted to know what he should have been doing.

"What are you two doing!?" Naofumi was almost pleading for them to escape. "Run! Get out of here!"

Ren looked over towards Motoyasu and decided. He wrapped the unconscious friend's arm around his neck and beckoned Itsuki to do the same.

"W-What!? Are we really leaving Nao here alone!?"

"... I can't think of anything else we can do! The best thing we can even consider is find an exit and call for help!"

Itsuki clicked his tongue. He clearly hated this decision, but so did Ren. Itsuki brought the other arm over his own neck as they started to drag Motoyasu's body throughout the midst of the sound of fighting. Ren and Itsuki tried to make haste to find the opening as quickly as possible, managing to gain a considerable distance, but Ren kept looking back.

Naofumi was sweating. Naofumi was tired. Naofumi had been at his limit.

A blunt strike from the beowolf managed to knock him onto the ground and instead of trying to make it past Naofumi, it decided that one human's flesh was good enough for a night's hard work. As it crept closer, Ren couldn't stop staring. His pause caused Itsuki to look back in horror as the beowolf readied itself to munch on Naofumi's body.

He was still alive. Blood had been trickling down his forehead, but he was still moving.

Ren watched as his mind blanked out from the scene.

…

_Naofumi is weak. Naofumi is going to die._

_Why can't I do anything!?_

_Why…_

… _am _I_ weak!?_

...

"_That quote means_ _that even in the toughest of situations, we're standing by each other's side, no matter what. That's how we'll all make it through together. It's like chopsticks. You may be able to break a single one by itself, but it'll be impossible to break them all if they're banded together. That's because if we're together_—_"_

"—_we're _**_strong_**_."_

Ren was silent.

It was like the wildfire hadn't started yet.

It was like there hadn't been a grimm trying to kill them.

It was like his world _stopped_. The colours had faded into a black-and-white setting as the only sound he could hear was the systematic beating of his own heart.

_Badum_, it went.

_Badum_, it cried.

_Badum, badum, badum_.

And then, there was nothing.

…

…

_So what is it that you want to do?_

—_I want… I want to help him._

_And how are you going to do that?_

—_I… I need more power._

_Now tell me. How are you going to even get this power?_

—_I… I don't know._

—_But I want it._

—_I need power. _

—_I need to have the strength to fight and take down everything that threatens our lives!_

[If power is what you desire, then hold that blade of yours up high.]

[If power is what you desire, then raise those ideals into the sky.]

[Unsheath your strength and break the chains that hinder your future.]

[Unleash your strength and lead yourself into your own claimed _victory_.]

—_Give me more power. Give me more strength._

[More power will be provided. More strength will be provided.]

[And yet, the question lies. Do you _hesitate_?]

—_No, I won't run away._

—_I won't run. _

—_We will make it through together!_

[Then fight fiercely with the promise embedded in your sword.]

—_WE WILL WIN. NO MATTER WHAT!_

**REN AMAKI**

**[The Hero of the Sword]**

* * *

Out of all the ways to go, Naofumi never expected to be eaten by a grimm. He wanted to stand back up, but the beowolf had already slammed its foot onto his body. As it basically crushed his lungs, breathing was becoming much harder to do. It was only a matter of time before he was eaten as he was still conscious. He'd imagine it was as painful as all hell, but he thought back to Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu. If his death meant that he bought enough time to get them to escape, he would consider it to be worthwhile.

He was satisfied that the people he considered his friends—maybe even his true family—had been able to escape with their lives intact. He closed his eyes, remembering them for what may have been the final time. His only remaining wish is that they would be able to meet again in the next life, perhaps without the notion of an orphanage. Maybe if they were able to be normal children and become friends at a school, that alone would have been a fun experience.

_Going to school with Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu, huh…?_

_That… would have been nice…_

He took one final breath and hoped that if he died imagining that world, it may come to be.

…

…

"_NAOFUMI!_"

A voice roared as it came violently closer, causing Naofumi to shoot his eyes wide open. Above him, Ren flew into the grimm, striking it in its head with a sword as Naofumi was frozen in his attempts to wrap his head around what the hell Ren had been doing. Naofumi was about to speak up until a damp liquid dripped onto his cheek.

It was blood, but not his own of Ren's.

It belonged to the grimm and it was dripped out at a fast rate as the grimm was knocked back by the momentum Ren must have picked up with his frontal assault.

Ren drilled the grimm off of Naofumi and sent both of them flying into the distance. Ren separated himself, sending the beowolf a fair distance away and he rolled back onto his feet.

Naofumi slowly pushed himself up, only to realize that the sword that Ren had been holding wasn't one that was made out of water. The blade was silver, as golden ornaments were decorated along the weapon. On its hilt, a blue gem had been embedded, familiar to the green gem that Naofumi himself had on his shield.

"... Ren?"

As Naofumi stood back up, Ren straightened out his battle posture, keeping his eyes on the beowolf.

"... So this is what Ozpin meant. He said that our semblances were similar, but I didn't realize that he meant it like _this_."

"... It's… a sword."

"So it would seem."

Ren swung the sword into another position, glaring at the recovering beowolf. It had a clear injury that he just made along the chest and it was bleeding badly. The attached blood was dripping from Ren's new weapon as Naofumi already knew what Ren wanted to do.

Ren was hungry for some vengeance.

Likewise, Naofumi wanted some revenge too—payback for the terror that the grimm gave to them.

"Let's talk about this later. For now, we're coordinating an attack," Ren declared as the beowolf studied the newfound threat to itself. Naofumi slowly walked up to Ren's side and took a battle posture as well. "We're going to win this one. Losing or retreating is not an option here."

"...Yeah. I know."

Ren and Naofumi weren't going to wait around for the grimm to come for them.

""This time, we're _killing _the enemy!""

They ran forwards, laying their spirits onto their screams.

They were going to _win_.

Colour was restored back into Ren's senses, but there was something more to that vision. It was as Naofumi had mentioned—there was a heads-up interface that he remembered from some games he saw in town. According to the hierarchy of the three bars, Ren made a guess to what they were considering their fullness, but it held no importance to him for naming them out.

All he wanted to do was to kill this stupid grimm once and for all.

The grimm lashed out one of its claws, thrusting its attack directly at Ren. However, Naofumi managed to pick up his pace, jumping right between them and intercepting the attack. The parry seemed a little stronger than before somehow, causing the monster to stagger in greater detail than before.

Ren took the opening and leapt over Naofumi. He extended his blade underneath him, dragging the weapon through the beowolf's shoulder and landing right behind it. It cried out in pain, but Ren didn't want to give it any moment to breath.

"Naofumi! To me!"

"Yeah!"

Naofumi dashed forwards into the faltering grimm, pushing him forwards. Ren spun around it, cycling his blade in an arc, slashing its torso as flew past. It rolled over a few times, growling in deep pain, but the assault didn't stop.

They both closed the gap once again as the grimm forcibly picked itself up to retaliate. Naofumi led the clash, taking the first attack and bouncing it off. However, it landed on its feet with both clawed palms ready to catch Ren if he ever tried to jump over again.

Ren instead slid underneath Naofumi's legs and caught one of the grimm's back legs as he glided right between them. There wasn't even a second to let the grimm howl—Ren rebounded once he was behind and struck the beowolf in the back. Sent over to Naofumi, he lunged with the shield, knocking it back like some sort of game, as Ren took the combination and struck with a rising slash. Naofumi followed up by jumping into the air and shoving it over Ren.

It bounced along the ground not once, but five times from Naofumi's momentum.

Ren didn't necessarily understand it.

It was like his mind was clear even through the despair he had gone through mere moments ago. With a monster that seemed like a big boss, the two friends had its movements wrapped around their fingers.

The wounds looked to be heavy on the grimm, but it still glared at the friends with bloodlust, dropping to a quadrupedal stance and ramming forwards.

It was slower, but Ren didn't know if it was because of the injury or because he was moving faster.

Naofumi must have been seeing the same thing as he quickly stood in front and parried the attack once again, allowing Ren to land a clean strike against its body. It tried again, and it was parried by Naofumi and attacked by Ren. Again and again, the grimm tried its linear mindset without realizing that it wasn't going to break through.

However, it muscled through with an unexpected lunge. It knocked Naofumi backwards into Ren, causing the two friends to roll over each other to a stop. It dug its claws into the earthen ground and relentlessly pursued their bodies.

They took their recoveries and went to split up upon the left side and right side. Confused at the diversion, the grimm saw Itsuki and the downed Motoyasu in its path and still pressed on, but the two friends weren't going to let that happen. They stepped towards each other, timing it just right on Ren's cue, sandwiching the grimm between sword and shield. The running slowed down, but with Naofumi dropping right off, Ren had been forced to ride it from the side—his sword was stuck.

Even so, Ren pulled his weight backwards and redirected the course into a tree. The collision knocked the tree down, but Ren was able to pull out his sword and leaping away from it.

He arrived next to Naofumi, but the grimm was still kicking. Scampering around, it quickly appeared before them and swiped its claws. Naofumi blocked the attack, but the strength imbued within it had carried Naofumi and Ren back to where they started originally.

Naofumi and Ren quickly stood right up, only for Ren to realize he released the grip on his sword and it went flying somewhere else. Naofumi saw it, but he still met with the grimm for what seemed like the hundredth time during the fight—and he would do it a thousand more times too.

However, Ren saw where the sword was.

He got ready.

Naofumi didn't know where the sword was, but he wanted to give enough time for Ren to recover it. He could hear Ren's footsteps behind him, so he tried to hold the grimm in place for Ren to land a clean strike on—

"Naofumi, move out of the way!"

With Ren's instructions, he didn't even question it.

He sidestepped the interaction as the grimm continued on its warpath and looked behind him to see what Ren was planning. However, he saw that Ren didn't even have his sword, but he was still running towards the grimm. Naofumi didn't know what to think about it, but surely, Ren had a plan—

—and just then, a sword came flying over Ren's head and connected into the beowolf's chest. Naofumi looked where the sword had come from, seeing that _Itsuki_ had been the one to throw it, given his current stance. His accuracy when throwing things had always been spot-on, digging the sword deep within, but it finished yet.

Ren leapt into the staggered grimm and caught his sword's hilt and thrusted forwards even more. The beowolf was desperately trying to knock Ren away, but it couldn't even response. All it could do was growl in the midst of Ren's scream.

"HYYAAAGH!"

Ren gritted his teeth as he turned all of his muscles inwards, straining them to push right through. As he went on, rocks had been pelting the grimm's arms and legs—Itsuki was making sure that its actions were definitely suppressed.

"IT'S OVER!"

And in one fell swoop, Ren punctured through the grimm, leaving a massive hole for him to parse right through. He had a rough landing, bouncing a few times before he stopped and he was covered in the grimm's blood. He was raspfully breathing from that attack with his arms shaking from the sudden release, but he was smiling as well.

The grimm held the position with a gaping hole through its chest and slowly fell over.

Naofumi kept his guard up, just in case and moved in carefully to see if he needed to finish it off if required. However, the grimm's body began to transform into dust.

The tenseness in his body dropped.

… _We won._

However, the dust didn't simply fade away. It started to circle around Naofumi's shield which freaked him out slightly, but his green gem had been glowing as it did. It was as if it was absorbing the dust, taking the remains into its surface. He hadn't been feeling anything weird, so he had doubts if he should have stopped the interaction. In honesty, he was too tired to even think about how he could stop it if he actually wanted to.

Naofumi started to think about the shield.

Considering the powers that he felt like he had during the fight, there was no doubt that this was part of his semblance, if they were any to begin with. However, he had never heard about a semblance that can manifest a physical object like this. To make things even weirder, it doesn't seem like the bars were going away anytime soon. He remembered there was something that was said across his sight when he first unlocked this shield.

_Naofumi Iwatani. The Hero of the Shield._

However, a single note had broke him out of his thoughts.

**[Shield Unlocked]**

**Alpha Beowolf Shield**

**(Grimm Series)**

\- increased movement speed (small)

\- increased agility (medium)

\- adds extra damage to attacks of party members (small)

\- (special) ability to summon a weak beowolf

However, he didn't take the time to read it fully. Once his mind was free from the shield, the next priority gave over.

"Ren!"

He ran over to his friend who had been struggling to stand up straight. He was using his sword as a type of cane to at least get himself onto his feet. He was still retaining his smirk.

"Serves that damn grimm right for messing with us."

"Are you alright?"

"I can still move. I'll call that a win."

Meanwhile, Itsuki had been dragging Motoyasu across to them, smiling in contentedness as well. Naofumi quickly came to help support him.

"That grimm is finally taken down," Itsuki said. "Now, all we need to do is get out of this forest."

"Still…" Ren looked over towards where the beowolf had died. "That was much tougher than I expected. I didn't realize beowolfs were so tough."

Naofumi recalled the sudden note that popped up seconds ago.

"... _Alpha… beowolf…_"

"An alpha beowolf!?" Ren widened his expression before chuckling. "Heh. It makes sense! So that's why it was so difficult! If it was a normal beowolf, we would have never gotten into this situation!"

"Anyways, Itsuki's right." Naofumi looked at the unconscious Motoyasu. "We need to get out of here before anything else no—"

Something stopped Naofumi from finishing his sentence.

There were a big number of howls coming from the burning forest. If what they killed was the alpha, then surely, the rest of the beowolf would notice that their leader was dead. Naofumi stared back in disbelief as he could vaguely make out the shadows of a few—no there were tens upons tens—of beowolfs coming into their direction.

On one side, they were all ordinary beowolves. It was clear to see considering that they were all noticeably smaller than the one they fought. However, that alone didn't really matter in the end. There were simply too many of them to deal with given the fact that they had an unconscious person and their main defensive line was getting very tired.

"All that work and we're dying either way…" Ren mulled.

Itsuki clicked his tongue and grunted. Tears started to sob upon his cheek. "I-I'm sorry, guys. It was all because I wanted to come on this adventure… I only wanted to make more memories with all of you. I should have just listened to you, Nao. None of this would have happened if I wasn't so stubborn!"

"It's fine, Itsuki." Naofumi looked over with a serene expression to aide Itsuki's depressed words. "Setting aside the part where we die, I think I… _enjoyed_ this adventure. If we live through this somehow, maybe we should go on more adventures. Though, maybe we should know when to stop though and know our limits."

"R-Really?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm still pissed that you pulled me out of my sleep for this."

Naofumi's soft words, despite the underlying theme, had made Itsuki smile through tears. He wiped them off of his face with his spare hand and looked over to the ones that would let them meet their makers.

"You all can still talk like it's the end." Ren glared at the monsters and stood straight up, tightening his grip on the sword. "I'm not going down without a fight, at the very least."

As Ren took the center stage, he looked back towards the friends. "I'm going to fight them with the intention of winning. Provide me support from a distance Itsuki and Naofumi, make sure that none of the grimms attack Itsuki or Motoyasu."

"... That's… insane." Naofumi couldn't help but to mutter that out loud.

"_Nyeh…_" Motoyasu slowly opened his eyes through his limp body and slowly brought his eyes to survey the surroundings. Naofumi gasped as Motoyasu was starting to come back to his mind. "..._Are we… out… yet?_"

"Great, you woke up just when we're about to die," Ren answered. "If being stampeded by a bunch of grimm counts as a part of that definition, then in a way, I suppose we're out."

"... _Then can I… say something…?_"

"What?" Ren tilted his head at the clearly unenergized friend. "That you're happy to have met us? That meeting us has changed your life? Anything sappy along the lines of that?"

"..._ I don't want... to die a virgin._"

"..."

"..."

"..."

Ren, Itsuki, and Naofumi stood in silent through Motoyasu's announcement, said in a completely serious tone, as Motoyasu fell back to sleep. Both Itsuki and Naofumi were in disbelief to what Motoyasu's chosen last words had been, while Ren glared at the friend with contempt.

"... _Motherfucker wakes up to say that moments before we die, only to fall back asleep again_."

Even in the foreseeable end, the group ended up chuckling as Ren smirked in amusement.

Nevertheless, the situation was helpless. Their newfound segments of their semblances seemed to be strong, especially in tandem, but at the end of the day, they were mere children—fourteen year olds that haven't even known what school was like. There was no way to run away, especially with Motoyasu in this state, and jumping the wired fence wasn't an option. The only way to get out of here was to _fight_ once again. It was extremely unlikely to live through it, but that was the only chance.

There was one more howl to initiate the stampede and they prepared themselves for the end.

Naofumi winched, preparing himself for the end. He'd only pray that it didn't hurt as he would think it would.

…

…

"Huh? What the—?"

Ren's alarmed confusion had brought Naofumi out of his flinching, causing him to open back up to his surroundings. All so suddenly, a bright flash of yellow light came about the area and just as quickly, a shining projectile flew past Naofumi's body and towards the leading beowolf, immediately crushing its skull into nothing but black blood and dust.

It fell to a halt as its lifeless body began to be trampled by its comrades, but there hadn't been simply one projectile that came. As Naofumi and his friends watched in a jaw-dropped fashion, multiple projectiles had started to almost fling themselves over towards the horde, each taking one or two down with ease and proficiency.

As much as Naofumi was eternally grateful for this random incident to be occurring, the projectiles had to be coming from somewhere.

Naofumi and Ren turned their heads—Ren must had been on the same train of thought—and they noticed a tall figure of a woman. She looked like she was in her thirties, had blonde hair tied back in a bun with a curl hanging on the right side of her stern expression. She was wearing a long-sleeved, pleated top, a cape on top of it, that was black on the outside, and purple on the inside, as well as a black skirt. In her hand had been a wand-like stick.

Itsuki noticed his friends' drawn attention and glanced back for himself.

This woman, whoever she was, must have been the one controlling the projectiles. If that was the case, her semblance was rather strong to be able to control that many objects at a single time. Either she had been a really strong wanderer of the lands, which most probably wasn't the case, or she was—

"A-Are you… Are you a huntress!?" Itsuki had asked what everyone had been thinking, gleaming with hopes in his eyes.

The footsteps of the incoming army hadn't stopped, but they were definitely lighter than before. Without any additional heistation, more projectiles had started to surround her as she took up her wand, almost like how Itsuki would control his rock bullets—simply intensified in a greater proportion and not limited to rocks on the ground.

They all flew past the boys, as Naofumi ripped his head back to see where they were all going. One by one, they collided with the remaining grimm with such brutality and eventually, there hadn't even been a single noise in the forest, other than the subtle crackling of the wildfire—something that seemed to actually been quieter than before.

The woman had raised her crop into the sky, as black clouds began to circle the area. From there, the rain had started to fall, enough to keep the fire down and secured. The destruction that was the wildfire was coming to its end.

Naofumi felt easiness within his heart.

They were alive.

They made it out of the grim situation and he couldn't be happier.

However, a soft coughing drew back Naofumi's attention to the woman. With the darkness aided with a somber light from the flames, Naofumi couldn't explain why her figure looked to be more sinister. His heart started to pound once again, squirming around in this unexpected fear as she pushed her glasses up.

Naofumi gulped and he was fairly certain that Itsuki and Ren did as well. They were all too familiar for what was about to come.

"Well, I _sure _hope that you have some good excuses for all that commotion."

* * *

**_To be continued_**

* * *

**_Here we go, part 2 out of 3 of the prologue_**.

**_Together with Pretty Lazy we really tried to make this as brief as possible but... yeah._**

**_Anyway, WE hope you liked it regardless._**

**_Cya!_**

**_[PLZ don't skip it]_**


	3. Prologue 3

"Do you realize how bad your situation is?"

A special room had been requested from the woman the minute that she brought them back to the orphanage. Naofumi hadn't been too familiar with the room that was given since it had been one of the staff offices. Paperwork had still been neatly stacked on the desks as the woman had forced the three friends to sit down on the chairs before it. She crossed her arms, standing right behind the desk.

Motoyasu, in some twisted sense, had been lucky. Considering his current condition, the woman had someone else, most likely another hunter, to take the orphan to a hospital. They were told that he wasn't in any life-threatening situations, but he'll be unconscious for a bit longer than they would expect. The hospital was going to help manage his health during that length of time.

On their ends, bandages and medkit items were provided for those who needed it. In particular, Naofumi had one wrapped around his forehead.

"Y-Yes, ma'am…" Naofumi dipped a lowered head, shyly speaking up in the midst of the woman's stern tone. "W-We apolog—"

Her response was to cut of Naofumi and hit the table with her crop.

"I don't remember allowing you to speak."

Naofumi tried not to make any eye contact, but he could still feel her piercing gaze striking into his soul. It was hard to help themselves out in this situation, only being able to sit in silence as the invisible weight had buried their shoulders.

"Let's see… _First_, you run away from the orphanage without any permission or supervision. _Second_, you trepassed an area in which it was clear to be forbidden for any normal people to enter. Not only that, but you opened up a hole along the perimeter that could have been used by a smaller grimm to escape. _Third_, it's clear that you encountered some grimm and took your own measures, causing one of your members of the escapade to be rendered unconscious. _Fourth_—"

_Holy shit, she's still going. We really messed up._

"—you managed to start a wildfire that practically destroyed almost half of the forest. There will be expenses in recovering parts that can be recovered and clearing up the ashes and charred remains. Not only that, but the grimm that had been hiding out within the forest relocated due to the fire and we currently have no idea where they could have gone as of this moment."

Naofumi could only feel his unrestless heart as the woman kept listing out their sins. All of the issues she had brought out made it seem like they went out and broke laws—which might not be far from the truth, considering all of the damage that they caused. Saying that he was nervous to know the aftermath of their fates had been an understatement, to say the very least.

The woman sighed with a deep breath.

"Really… You boys don't even realize how lucky the four of you are."

"_Yeah…_"

Ren looked at his sword, prompting Naofumi to glance at the shield that was still on his person. No matter what they did, they wouldn't go away. They simply remained once the threat had been gone and it still felt unreal to them that weapons came when they were in need. If they hadn't unleashed the shield and the sword, none of them would be sitting in this room right now.

Even the heads-up interface of the three bars had remained in their vision. It appeared like they were going to have to live like this for an indeterminable length of time, most likely tied with their summonable weapons.

"If these weapons never came to us, we would have been too weak to even defeat the beowolf and then…"

"That's not what I meant in particular, but I suppose you're lucky in that sense as well." The woman shook her head as she looked over at the clock, ticking down to what would have been around the time they should have been waking up. If it weren't for the fact they were being scolded, Naofumi would have been impressed by the fact that they essentially pulled an all-nighter. "_He_ should be coming in around this time."

Naofumi raised his eyebrow.

_He?_

Naofumi started to hear the familiar voices of the caretakers echoing through the halls. They were becoming louder, but among the midst of the voices, there had been another that was also familiar, but Naofumi was surprised to hear _his_ voice. He couldn't mistake it for anyone else.

_That voice belongs to…_

The door opened up behind them as the caretakers made way for a middle-aged man with gray hair and brown eyes, hidden behind slightly tinted glasses. His black suit gave a professional atmosphere to it, if not for the offset of his cosy cowl around his neck.

Itsuki had been the first to vocally identify him.

"Mister Ozpin!?"

"Hello there, children," the man smiled softly. "Itsuki, Ren, and… Naofumi, was it?"

"A-Ah, hello, Mister Ozpin…"

As Naofumi nodded to the affirmation of his name, he noticed that Ozpin had been carrying a plate and a mug. The scent seemed like coffee, but Naofumi was taken back by the plate. He couldn't exactly see what was on it from his angle, but the mystery wouldn't be held for much longer. He placed the plate on the desk in front of them, revealing the contents to be cookies.

"It must have been quite the eventful night. Please, take some."

"Hmmph." The woman glanced over at Ozpin. "I hope you don't make this into a habit, rewarding cookies to children that shouldn't get any."

"Don't be so stern, Glynda. I heard from the reports and I made my way over as soon as possible. These children successfully defeated an alpha beowolf together. If they were mistaken, it was still a grimm of a powerful force. That alone should have some sort of reward."

Naofumi looked over to Ren and Itsuki, who were both heistant on grabbing one of the treats. However, Itsuki went in and took the first cookie, though slowly. Itsuki kept an eye on both Ozpin and Glynda to see their reactions and once his hand successfully captured one, Naofumi realized that there wasn't any strings attached. Both Ren and Naofumi went and grabbed one for themselves, slowly munching on them.

… _Chocolate chip. It's good._

"I appreciate your help for them, Glynda."

Her response was simple silence, glancing back at the three boys.

Ozpin walked around the desk to take a seat on the other side, pulling the attention back to them. Naofumi looked back quickly, seeing that the caretakers had already left the room, leaving them to be alone with the pair of nonnative adults.

"Are you three alright?" he opened up. "Hopefully, none of you received any more injuries that we aren't aware about."

Itsuki shook his head. "N-No, not that I know of."

"Other than Motoyasu," Ren responded, "we should be alright. Just a bit drained from our semblances and our tiredness, that's all."

"... _Motoyasu._" Naofumi couldn't help but to think about the sacrifice that he made to give them space to win that fight. If he hadn't unleashed his final roar, Ren and Itsuki would have been hit pretty hard.

"Your friend's condition is stable. There's no need to worry," Ozpin announced. "I visited him just before I arrived here, and the medical staff said that it'll take about a week for him to regain his consciousness. Semblance overuse is a dangerous thing to do."

The group had immediately perked up upon the news. "R-Really?"

"Yes. He will be fine and back with you after he is discharged from the hospital. It shouldn't take that long after they check his vitals when he awakens."

Sighs of alleviation could be heard as the trio has been calmed down, not having to worry as much about their fallen friend anymore. There was some type of confidence in being told that Motoyasu _might_ be okay to Motoyasu _being known_ to be okay, and Naofumi definitely felt that rush of relief.

"Anyways, I shouldn't dwindle around any longer. Do you know as to why I am here?"

Naofumi reluctantly took his guess. "... Because we burned down the forest?"

Ozpin held his tongue in an aloof manner. "Partially, I would say you're correct. However, that isn't the main reason as to why I am here. It's because—"

"—our weapons that came from our semblances." Ren had finished Ozpin's line for him. "In our previous meetings, you talked about how our semblances might be similar to each other, but I didn't understand why. Now, I do, assuming that _this_ is what our real semblances are."

The room had been silent, breaking only from Ozpin's amused chuckle.

"Observant as always, young Ren. It is indeed as he says. I have come because I've received a report that you had been holding your 'semblance weapons', as you call them. It is the reason as to why I was intrigued by your existence in the first place, the four of you."

Naofumi took one more look at his shield, still gleaming with its green gemstone in the center. The way that Ozpin had worded that phrase made it seem rather ominous and unnerving, causing him to slightly twitch in his place. At least the cookies made it less awful to think about.

"Mister Ozpin," Ren said, "do you know what the meaning behind these weapons is? I… I don't think I've ever heard of a semblance like this before—the ability to summon physical weapons. Not to mention that these would be our second semblances, which is already pretty weird."

Ozpin rubbed his chin, sharing eye contact with Glynda. She averted her eyes quickly, as Ozpin chuckled, returning his focus to the friends.

"It's quite complicated, so I suppose I should start from the beginning," Ozpin started. "Don't worry, I'll try to keep it as simple as possible."

Naofumi, Ren, and Itsuki all brought their attention onto the table. Itsuki quickly took one more cookie beforehand though.

"Your semblances belong to a special group that is not known to the public, not out of secrecy, but out of extreme rarity. They've been called the "Holy Weapons", in which the main idea of these semblances is something you've discovered hours ago." Ozpin pointed casually towards both sword and shield. "It is the ability to summon a specific type of weapon as your aid. I hate to drabble onwards without your understanding, but there is much more than that…"

"Much more than summoning weapons?" Ren held his sword down against his knees. "What else could there be? This alone is already a lot."

"How could I put this in terms you can understand without using any of the technical jargon?" As Ozpin thought briefly, his words returned to him once again. "Ah. Tell me, boys. Do you like video games?"

"Huh? Of course we do! Although, we don't get to play them a lot since the orphanage doesn't have any. We usually get to only see what they are like and imagine how it would be to play it ourselves…" As Itsuki went on, a realization hit him as he raised his eyebrows. "Huh? Mister Ozpin, why are you asking that?"

"... _The heads-up display,_" Ren answered quietly. "_HUD_, for short."

"Indeed. All of the 'Holy Heroes', as we refer to those with your type of semblances, are able to see it. A special 'HUD' that will help display information in a visual format. That is one of the other layers of this semblance."

Ren and Naofumi nodded, taking it in. They could see it right in front of that, after all.

However, there was a small outcry in the center.

"H-Huh!? You guys can see a HUD!?"

"Yeah."

"That's not fair!" Itsuki proclaimed. "I want to see one too! That sounds so cool!"

"I… I don't know about that," Ren responded, rubbing his eyes. "It's rather distracting, constantly seeing this information all the time. It's already pissing me off, and it's only been a few hours since it popped up."

"Your HUD will prove itself to be quite useful in fights. However, there _is_ a way to hide it when it is not needed. All you need to do is learn to control your semblance, just as everyone learns how to control their own ones."

"_Oh thank god,_" Ren muttered to himself.

"Wait," Naofumi raised his hand. "You know a lot about our semblances, Mister Ozpin. Do you have a semblance like ours too?"

"No. No, I do not," Ozpin said, shaking his head. "As I said, it is extremely rare to find."

"... I kinda have some doubts about that," Ren said, scratching his head. "What are the chances that _two_ of these rare-occurring semblances are two friends that are living in the same orphanage? And what about our original semblances? You haven't talked about my water semblance or Naofumi's defensive semblance either. Is this a second semblance, or is there something else to it?"

Ozpin nodded. "Yes, what you refer to as your 'original' semblances is merely a part of the 'Holy Weapons' semblance, but perhaps I'll leave that explanation for another day. I don't want to overload your growing minds with details that aren't too important right now."

"And the chances of the occurrence?"

"That is also something that is of a rare occurrence. _Extremely_ rare. Even a few hundred lottery tickets winning would have better chances than having all of you right here with this certain type of semblance. That is one of the reasons as to why I made visits whenever I could. It is _very_ odd."

"... Wait a minute." Itsuki raised his eyebrows. "Mister Ozpin, you've said that our semblances were similar, right? Does this actually mean that Moto and—I mean, Motoyasu and I—also have these 'Holy Weapons' in some shape or form?"

"Haven't you unlocked yours yet?"

"... No?" Itsuki tilted his head. "Should I have?"

"_FOUR_!?" Ren had practically been standing up in disbelief. "The _four_ of us have this rare semblance!? That's even _less _likely!"

"And as I said," Ozpin responded, pushing up his spectacles, "_Very, very odd_. It was as if fate had brought the four of you together."

Itsuki took his time to raise his hand. "... Then, what do I have to do to unlock mine?"

Ozpin had shook his head this time. "That is something that I do not know. I'm sorry to disappoint you, young Itsuki." As Itsuki's expression darkened, Ozpin continued. "However, I would be led to believe that it is simply just like unlocking any person's semblance for the first time."

"Yeah," Naofumi added on. "Both of our weapons came to us when we were in a desperate situation. It fits with how some people find their semblances in the first place. Maybe one day, it'll just casually reveal itself like how our original semblances came to be."

Hope returned to Itsuki's eyes, pumping himself up.

"Anyways, there are still many things that I should tell you about your semblances and even more for you all to learn. However, I want to show you something." Ozpin reached into his pocket and pulled something out. All the boys straightened themselves upwards to catch what he was holding. It had looked to be a small vial with something that looked like dust.

Red Dust—it had a flame element attached to it.

"Naofumi. Ren. Please show me your weapons."

The two boys had nervously looked at each other before standing up and placing their weapons onto the desk. Itsuki jumped out of his seat, wanting to join in with his friends, as Ozpin uncorked the vial and pour half of it on top of Naofumi's shield. Specifically, it had been on top of the green gem.

Soon enough, the gem started to glow and it sucked up the dust inside of it like an exclusive vacuum, right through the solidity. As everything had been absorbed, his HUD started to react and there was a small announcement menu on his perspective.

**[Shield Unlocked]**

**Fire Dust Shield  
(Dust Series)  
**\- increased fire resistance (high)  
\- increased explosion resistance (medium)

_Again? This happened with the Alpha Beowolf remains, too!_

While Ozpin had been pouring the rest of the dust onto the blue gem on Ren's sword, Naofumi couldn't contain his question.

"W-What's going on? Something showed up on my HUD, saying that I… 'unlocked' something. I don't necessarily understand what this means."

"This is the main strength of your semblance. These weapons aren't normal weapons, crafted by people like you and I. They hold a special ability to absorb many different things in order to grow stronger. You may think of it as… a level-up system or a class-system. I'm not very involved in video games, so you may need to forgive my misuse of terminology."

Ren had been taken by surprise, probably from his own pop-up. However, instead of asking questions, it seemed like Ren had been focusing on something in his HUD. After a few seconds of standing silent, Ren took up his sword, cradling the blade in his hands. Ren closed his eyes, visibly focusing on the weapons' shape.

Soon enough, the blue gem started shining brightly as its shape and colour were beginning to change, alarming both Itsuki and Naofumi. However, it seemed to him that Ren knew what he was doing.

"Excellent, young Ren. You already managed to figure out how to change in between unlocked forms. Quite impressive."

The sword now looked different. Instead of its silver tone, it looked like a simple short sword from medieval times, but orange-reddish in color. It's golden hilt was also shaped like flames, and the blue gem was still inside it. It was simply awe-striking to see its beauty, as Ren took a look at his newly formed weapon.

"_I… want… that…_" Itsuki muttered in his excitement. "H-Hey, Nao!? Ren!? What do you think my weapon might be!? Or Moto's!? I'm getting excited just _thinking_ about it!"

"R-Ren, how did you do that?" Naofumi asked. He himself wanted to control his shield in a similar manner as well.

"Hmm. How do I explain this?" Ren rubbed his chin before pointing up his finger. "Try imagining that your center of attention is a mouse cursor on a screen. Move that mouse cursor to click one of the icons in the bottom-right corner of your vision. There _should_ be some there, just click the right-most one."

"... Eh?" He raised his eyebrows in confusion, turning over to Ozpin who chuckled at the reaction.

"More or less," Ozpin shrugged.

There wasn't anymore hints he was getting here, so Naofumi decided to roll with it. He allowed his eyes to guide the invisible cursor towards the corner, to which he noticed icons that he never actually noticed before. He counted the icons, grabbing the one Ren told him to click and imagine 'clicking' it.

… _Yeah, this is going to take some getting used to._

Before his eyes, a menu menu popped up with the list of his 'unlocked' shields. Right now, there was the default, the alpha beowolf, and the fire dust. He merely followed his instincts, wanting to select the fire dust shield.

The moment he did, the shield's gem began to shine and started to transform in a similar manner to how Ren's sword had done. Its appearance had altered to have a orange-reddish sheen to its surface, along with a flame like design as its edges.

"Whoa, that's amazing!" Itsuki exclaimed, taking the words right out of Naofumi's mouth.

"Its appearance isn't the only thing that has changed. Different forms will give different abilities and powers and since there is no recorded limit to how many weapons you can store in these menus, this gives the potential to become very strong in the future. As long as you devote your lives to strengthening your weapons, that is." Ozpin allowed a minute for the words to sink into the boys. It certainly did for Naofumi, meaning that if they really wanted to use their new semblance to the best of its ability, then their entire lives would have to be wrapped around it.

"The question now concerns," Ozpin continued, "if you wish to have that power and what would you want to do with it."

"Summoning these weapons… This could be terrible if someone evil got their hands on them…" Ren contemplated the thought as he looked upon his sword and Naofumi's shield.

"While your weapons cannot be taken from you for a long duration, you are certainly correct in a manner. And this is why I am here for the four of you." Ozpin gave the three youths a stern expression. "To make sure that you won't be able to cause any unnecessary trouble."

"Trouble!? Why would we cause any!?" Itsuki proclaimed.

"... Tell me. Who was it that caused the forest wildfire?"

Itsuki had quickly retracted himself back into his seat, averting the gaze.

"I'm joking, to a certain degree, with that comment. However, I will say that it is not entirely easy to make that a certainty, young Itsuki."

Itsuki looked up from his chair. "... It's not?"

"Before I go on," Ozpin stated, finally taking his first sip from his coffee, "allow me to ask you three something. Have you thought about what do you wish to do in the future?"

Naofumi perked up, realizing this was a topic he brought up before the forest incident. Itsuki remembered it too, as suggested by the way he looked over at Naofumi before answering the question.

"I don't think any of us have an idea. We're kinda just… enjoying the moment for now. We don't know what the future might hold for us, or what we even want from it…"

"If that's the case, then I have an offer I would like to present to you." He placed the coffee down and rested his elbows on the table, hiding his mouth behind the intersecting hands.

"An offer?"

"How would you four, young Motoyasu included, feel about becoming huntsmen?"

Naofumi's jaw dropped at the ridiculous notion. Not that he hated it, not by a long shot, but the opportunity just seemed so unreal. Huntsman and huntresses were basically professionals when it came to fighting those grimm and they themselves barely made it out of a single fight. Naofumi assumed that it was originally because they _did_ eventually kill one, but it was out of sheer luck that they were able to. Clearly, Ozpin should have known that himself.

"Huntsmen!?"

"R-Really!?"

Both Ren and Itsuki were just as shocked by the idea as well.

"Of course! With semblances like the ones you have, you'll fit right in. Imagine how many people you could help with strong semblances…" Ozpin looked as Naofumi's eyes lit up.

"... or how many grimm you might be able to defeat with your new level of experience…" Ozpin panned over to Ren on the other side, seeing that his interest had been piqued.

"... or even the good deeds you'll be doing for our society. You could be real _heroes_." Ozpin glanced at the center, where Itsuki had been twitching with excitement from Ozpin's advertisement.

"... Wait." Ren, still intrigued, had been rubbing his chin after a thought's notice. "Don't we have to go to some Huntsman academy first?"

"_That…_" Naofumi sighed, realizing what Ren had been implying. "... And we're only orphans too, so there's no way that any academy would come to accept us. Not to mention that we probably won't be able to afford the tuition either, even if it was for a single year…"

"O-Oh…" Itsuki's shoulder shrunk, being dejected. "T-There goes that short-lived dream…"

However, Ozpin had simply smirked in the gloomy atmosphere of the three boys.

"... Do you three know who I am?"

Naofumi looked up from his silent sorrow. Now that Naofumi had thought about it, they didn't know much about Ozpin. All they knew was that he was a man who heard about their semblances and wanted to see them every so often. Naofumi scrunched up his eyebrows.

"... You're… Mister Ozpin?"

"That's my name, but not my profession," he chuckled. "I'm guessing you have no idea."

All three of them shook their heads.

"Alright. Have you heard about a little school called Beacon Academy?"

Itsuki blinked blanklessly at the name, but Naofumi remembered hearing it before. Perhaps it came up on the television once or twice, but Naofumi couldn't grasp what was on the tip of his tongue. However, it turned out that he didn't need to think too hard, given Ren's little outburst.

"Beacon Academy!? Of course, it's one of the best huntsmen academies in Vale!"

"That's a bit embarrassing to be said in front of me, but comments like that fill me with joy."

The boys looked at Ozpin in confusion.

"You see, I am the headmaster of Beacon Academy."

… _What?_

Eyes shot wide open as Ozpin was clearly amused by their reactions. Even Glynda, who had been watching the conversation silently made a little noise, turning her head away to prevent anyone from noticing. On the other side, things were deathly quiet, with none of them knowing how to even react with this bombshell Ozpin had dropped on them.

Ren pinched his forehead.

"... S-Sorry, Mister Ozpin. _I must have misheard something_. D-Did you… Did you just say…?"

"That I'm the headmaster of Beacon Academy? Yes, indeed. I did."

_He said it again!_

Naofumi was taken back greatly from this information, as his eyeballs were practically budging from his sockets. Words weren't even makeable anymore, causing Naofumi to only make inaudible grunts and moans to trying to figure out what's going on.

"And as the headmaster of the academy, I'm allowed to make any judgement calls as I see fit. That being said, I am prepared to bring everyone into Beacon Academy and even waive these tuitions of yours. This is how important I feel your semblances are and how much I understand your situation."

Naofumi started pinching himself quietly.

"In any case, I want you four, young Motoyasu included again, to attend Beacon Academy."

Naofumi glanced over towards his friends, quickly realizing that Ren's mind had long ago short-circuited from the revelation. However, Itsuki stood up in a chipper excitement.

"This is…!" He turned around to Ren and Naofumi. "This is a dream come true, guys! We gotta take the opportunity! There's no way that we can even _consider_ passing this up!"

"I-I still have questions here…" Ren started rubbing his temples like he had a headache. "Can we really come in? We're still stuck at this orphanage here and Beacon is for students, not to mention _experienced_ students, who are at least seventeen years old!"

"You're not wrong, young Ren. And this is where I get to the main reason as to why I arrived today."

Naofumi watched as Ozpin spoke every lasting word.

"Tell me. You don't have any families that would take you in yet, right?"

"... Not that we know of," Itsuki responded.

"Well, would you want one?"

_I feel like Mister Ozpin is about to drop another bombshell on us._

"If I were to adopt the four of you, you would not simply be brothers in spirit, but brothers in legality as well. You'll have to keep your current last names for technical reasons, but it's a small price to pay to keep you four together. Is that right?"

…_. And there it is._

"If I were to adopt the four of you, I can provide comfort of a workable environment, alongside the proper semblance training before your time arrives when you can begin your life at Beacon Academy. I would say that being taught in the presence of the headmaster more than qualifies as an experienced student. Am I correct?"

"Huh!?" Itsuki dropped back into his seat, frantically. "_You_ want to adopt all four of us!?"

Naofumi shook his head. It all felt too good to be real. Getting an opportunity at school and gaining a family in the process were a step-up from their current situation too grand to make in one fell swoop.

"Are… Are you _actually_ going to adopt us?" he asked.

Ozpin nodded. "Of course. I've already taken care of the paperwork and I only need to finish up a few legal documents. Other than that, all I need now is your approval. It would be a great problem if I adopted boys that didn't want to be adopted, after all."

"... Hmmph." The noise came from Ren who wasn't as excited as Itsuki was. In fact, Ren seemed to be glaring at Ozpin. "If I understand what you said correctly and considering what you've said so far, what you're trying to say is that you would have constant surveillance on us while making sure that our potential as huntsmen doesn't go to waste, all because of our special semblances. Is that right, _Mister Ozpin_?"

Ozpin held silent, pulling Naofumi's attention back to him. Naofumi thought if it had been true, it would have been a wonderful thing. However, Ren's rewording of it made much sense and it was rather eerie when said like that.

"... Once again, quite observant, young Amaki. You're reading me like a book, aren't you?" Naofumi felt chills down his spine before it completely disappeared from Ozpin's soft smile. "However, my proposition still remains. After all, your benefits are extremely high with my offer. Your only alternative is to remain at the orphanage, waiting for that mysterious future to unravel itself. In this regard, your semblances will surely go to waste."

"... And when you put it _that_ way…"

Ren appeared to drop himself to docility, looking as if he was thinking seriously about the offer.

"... If you're going to be adopting us," Itsuki jumped in, "does that mean we're going to have to call you by 'dad' or 'father' now? Something like that?"

Naofumi thought about the odd train of thought, knowing that by all technical terms, Itsuki was right. It would have felt a bit weird suddenly switching from calling Ozpin from 'Mister Ozpin' to 'father', but it wasn't something that was terrible. He could certainly get used to it if needed.

However, Naofumi saw how for a split second Ozpin's expression drastically changed. His mood of calmness and control got replaced with something that Naofumi couldn't even properly identify. Ozpin's eyes widened and looked unpleasant. His smirk disappeared, replaced with a mix of horror and despair. It was for a split second though, as Ozpin's expression returned to normal in almost an instant. It was so short that Naofumi wondered if it was just his imagination.

"You can call me… whatever you want to call me," Ozpin answered, almost emotionlessly. "It honestly does not bother me whether you choose to stick with 'Mister Ozpin' or even start calling me by a different title."

Ozpin took a deep breath, as if his last sentence took a small toll on him.

"Anyways, I would like to hear your answer. Would you wish to be adopted by me?"

The three friends looked at each other, both in nervousness, added with their excitement.

Itsuki smirked.

"... Yay or nay?" It's one hundred percent 'yay' for me, by the way."

"I say yay," Ren answered, holding his sword tightly. "I want to perfect this new semblance of mine—no. I want to see _our_ semblances be perfected! I'm all in!"

"What about you, Nao?"

Naofumi scratched his head. "Well shouldn't we wait for Motoyasu if we're going to make a big decision like this? He's part of our group too, you know. He's not here to decide for himself."

"Naofumi, just think about it," Ren chuckled. "Motoyasu would be getting the chance to leave this orphanage and straight into an academy where he'll have the chance to work his way with some girls his age! For a guy like him, it'll probably be heaven!"

Naofumi couldn't help but snort when Ren joked around like that. He couldn't feel the last time he had been this energized before. Sure, there were many times where he was happy, but he would have to say that this moment certainly took the cake.

"... Then in that case, it's going to be a quadruple 'yay' for this decision. If you guys want it, then I'll be coming with you all!"

"Full house sweep!" Itsuki exclaimed, pounding his fist into his palm. "I'm getting so excited! Once we get to Beacon Academy, just think about the life we're going to have there! Just think about the adventures!"

Ozpin smiled, seeing the three boys grinning across their faces.

"So then, what is your answer?"

They all looked back at Ozpin and took one unanimous nod.

" " "Our answer is yes!" " "

* * *

The night had finally come to an end, as the morning sun brought itself up into the sky. The time that felt like an eternity met its end, changing the lives of the four boys forevermore.

Ozpin had remained in the office, glancing outwards, towards the rising sun ever since the boys were dismissed from the room. Through all the explanations, he couldn't even finish half of his coffee. Thankfully, he didn't lose face since more than half of the cookies were left on the table. He would have thought that the children would have taken more, but he must have miscalculated. They were too curious to eat, but even so—

"You didn't tell them about the prophecy."

Glynda's voice slowly reached out for Ozpin, as he took his sip of his morning brew.

"Of course I didn't. They are still children. They wouldn't be able to comprehend the gravity of such a thing, not to mention understanding its basics. Not even young Ren would, I believe."

"Ozpin." He finally took the time to taste the coffee that was made for him. The caretakers must have forgotten to add sugar and cream, at least not very much. It was quite bitter, just as Glynda's words rolled on. "You have to remember that they are children with a semblance, not semblances attached to children. I agree that they will make powerful huntsmen in the future and that's what we wanted, but..."

"What are you talking about?"

Her words faltered slightly. "They are still children. As much as they can act up, they have their own dreams and ambitions, just like any other human."

"Of course. That goes without saying."

"Does it?" Glynda pushed up her glasses. "Did you not say it yourself? You wish to _train _them. You never mentioned anything about _raising_ them properly."

Ozpin chuckled, feeling that the coffee's warmth had long since passed away. "The 'Holy Weapons' semblance set can be rather destructive. I've seen it firsthand just how much chaos it can bring about. We're lucky that we got to them first beforehand and we shouldn't waste this opportunity. We will need to teach them how to use their semblance properly regardless."

"That's only half of the spectrum."

Regardless of the temperature and the taste, Ozpin continued to drink his coffee. He never liked pushing aside coffee and waiting to get more sugar and milk might make it lose all of its temperature by then. He silently glanced, noticing some birds that were flying away into the horizon.

"Training alone will not create an inherent good will out of people. There must be someone to guide them along—someone to _raise_ them."

"Is that so?" Ozpin answered, almost aloofly.

There was subtle sighing that emerged from his side. He was sure that she even shook her head in disbelief, all without even breaking away from the dawn's scenery. After a minute's silence, Glynda had asked another question.

"Do you know what one of them said to me after I walked them back to their room?" Ozpin didn't respond, but she assumed he was still listening. "The curly-haired one approached me and asked me whether or not I would be their mother."

Ozpin made a short, but amused chuckle.

"They are orphans, Ozpin. They never knew what a true parent is, or what a home meant to them. They only had each other to rely on, and since you promised a family, they'll be expecting something that they've never had before. I may have a reputation for being stern at the academy, but even I can see that this would be cruel to let them down now."

"Of course." Ozpin turned around in his chair, placing his cup gently onto the desk. There was a new expression on his face, but Glynda couldn't tell what it could have been. All that she could figure out was that Ozpin's words were gravely serious.

"_I do not intend to_."

* * *

**_To be continued..._**

* * *

**Editor Afterword**

Hey, my name's Pretty Lazy, a fellow writer on the site. I'm really really lazy, so username checks out. I hope you enjoyed the prologue for Remnant Heroes! Since people make 'trailer' chapters for each of their characters, you may think this prologue as an extended 'trailer' due to the fact that _all four_ characters are included, something that's pretty rare.

Anyways, Rook came to me with this idea as part of our little _Friendship AU _partnership over on the ROTSH fandom and I really wanted to help him out. Of course, ideas aren't really my strong suit, so I offered to make some writing changes to the scenes to help make the story flow better and develop some of the world even more. It may have been a slower pace than usual, but Rook was apparently fine with it (I don't know, don't ask me).

In any case, I really had fun with this project, so please keep up with the story as we finally begin the saga of the four friends' lives at Beacon Academy! I'm sure Rook has more he wants to say, but I guess that's all from me for now.

Yeah, okay. There's your afterword, Rook. Can I leave the dungeon now?

**Best Regards, Pretty Lazy.**

* * *

**_What's that noise? I think I heard something..._**

**_Anyways, that concludes our prologue!_**

**_We're still in the process of making volume 1 of our little story, so you may have to wait a bit for new chapters, sorry._**

**_That aside, I have to say I'm having surprisingly lots of fun making this fic, and I'm really thankful that Pretty Lazy helps me out with this one. I always find myself waiting impatiently to see what he comes up with. Really tho, we're like One and Murata._**

**_I don't have anything smart left to say so I guess Imma leave it here._**

**_Anyway, I hope you liked the prologue._**

**_Cya!_**


	4. Chapter 1 - An Eventful Evening

_Massive wooden doors towered the group as they took their heavy breaths. Everything that they were training for through the ruthless months of pain and suffering had to end today, given the sudden turn of events. It was either now or never as they all looked at each other, nodding in their silent agreement. With one swift action, the four warriors pushed through, breaking the locks with force._

_There was a paladin, wielding his mace and shield. He entered first, covering for his allies while making a swift survey for any prepared traps of preemptive attacks. With nothing flying towards them immediately, the knight with his greatsword came in to support his comrade, if needed. Shortly after, the wizard with his customized staff and the rogue with his dual daggers followed through._

_It was quiet within the castle, but it was very dark as well. The wizard was about to prepare a fire spell to help light their way to their objective, but flames began to light themselves up among the burnt torches, causing them to draw their sights all the way to the end of the chamber._

_An evil ruler had sat on the throne, glaring at them with a smirk. Their enemy had been clear, but between the two parties had been an absurd number of his royal guards, but a young girl that stood next to the ruler had been the center of their attention. Her eyes had been the same colour as the man._

"_She must be the princess!"_

_However, the king was already prepared, standing up from his throne and pointed straight towards the party of four. As if the room had echoed it, he made a boisterous command._

"_Cursed heroes! Coming here was your biggest mistake! Do not think you will leave my domain with your lives intact! My loyal knights! Bring me their heads!"_

_The knights hesitated at nothing to draw their weapons._

_However, the knights were wholly unprepared for the timing of their attack. The [Dramatic Entrance] that the four heroes had made allowed them to act beforehand._

["It's time to roll initiative."]

["Wait, how many were there?"]

["There's way too many to tell at a second's glance. By the time you finish counting even to half, you would already be dead."]

["Then what type of equipment do they have?"]

["As far as you can tell, they were all high-quality armour pieces and weapons. You can't see any of the specific details without wasting time."]

["Whatever, just pass me the dice!"]

["Where did our D20 go? Ah, here it is."]

["C'mon, give me something good! Hah! Natural 20!"]

["20, huh? Let's see what I get… Got 19. Not bad."]

["Only a 14 for me…"]

["And what did I get? Yikes. A 9. Anyways, the order is Motoyasu, Ren, Itsuki, then myself. Your move, Motoyasu."]

_The knight took a step forward, grinning in the face of danger. As the enemies began to engage in battle, the knight was able to charge forwards, lighting up his sword in a brilliant flame. Looking towards the area where most of the guards had been spaced out the least, he aimed to cause as much havoc in the frontlines as quickly as possible._

"_[Searing Blow]!" he shouted from the bottom of his lungs._

["Roll the D20 for accuracy."]

["Here I go!"]

["Hold on, what!? Another 20!?"]

["Well, pretty obvious that it's a clean hit on the selected area. Now, roll a D6 for the sword damage and D20 for the fire damage."]

[C'mon, give me something good…! It's a 5 and a 16! Hell yeah!"]

_The knight leapt up into the air, and threw out his arms, sending a fiery wave into the horde. The ones who were in front tried to take the attack for their allies, raising their shields, but the attack struck the weak points of the shield, breaking it instantly and slicing them in half, separating legs and torso. With a snap of the knight's fingers, the attack exploded, damaging the ones behind them, as he landed gracefully back on the ground._

["Your attack, to be exact, managed to instantly kill the two in front. Also, you managed to splash the attack to the ones behind them, 15 damage a piece."]

["Now _that's_ how it's done!"]

["Alright, Ren. It's your—"]

["I take my time from the back lines to count up all of the enemies in the room and inspect them more thoroughly."]

["Roll D20 for perception."]

["18."]

_The rogue briefly glanced at the entire room, keeping a mental counter and passed over every opposing entity. With a small room of error, enough that he would have the ability to rationally make decisions off of that, he had counted 25 bodies which excluded the king, the girl, and the two guards that his ally had recently killed._

_As for their equipment, the rogue quickly noticed that despite the fact that they were all made out of reinforced steel, none of the enemy guards had been wearing any enhanced gears. Most of them had swords, a small number of them having a sword made out of a stronger material. Three enemies had positioned themselves in the backline, preparing their crossbows in retaliation._

_The rogue scoffed. "Is this really all they have? I expected much more than this."_

["I use my illusion magic to make myself invisible, attempting to sneak up behind the king."]

["Okay. Roll a D—"]

["It's a success—rolled an 18."]

["... Alright then."]

_The rogue muttered a spell underneath his breath and in the next moment, he disappeared in a gust of smoke. His allies smirked with the successful act, but the rogue realized that they would have to buy some time before he could reach his objective. In his invisibility, he uttered an array of choice words._

"_Don't die in the meantime." His allies nodded, thinking to say the same thing towards the rogue._

_All in the meantime, the king had still noticed the rogue's tricks. "W-Where did that man in the backline go!?" he shouted, unnerved. "Guards! Make sure he doesn't make it anywhere near me!"_

["The distance is pretty far, so it'll take you more than one turn to reach him. Anyways, it's your turn now, Itsuki."]

_The wizard knew that the allied knight was going to be an easy target after his opening strike. He raised his staff up high as electricity started to gather up with a bright blue light as its origin. Winds started to kick up around him as he focused his efforts on the direction of his spell—the group of guards that had their crossbows ready._

["I already rolled, Naofumi. Look, see? It's a 15 for the accuracy!"]

["Hmmph. You guys are getting really lucky with your rolls today, unlike the game we played a week ago."]

["Hey, I thought we agreed to not talk about that session."]

["Let's just hope this luck isn't being siphoned from somewhere."]

["Why the fuck would you jinx us like that, Motoyasu?"]

["Never mind that. Itsuki, roll a D20 for your lightning damage."]

["... It's a 9."]

["... _Motoyasu_?"]

["I didn't do anything!"]

_Spinning the staff and guiding the lightning around him, he began his chanting for his spell. Chaining together his words in quick succession, there was a small screw-up in some of the words. Nevertheless, he aimed the staff towards his targets._

"_[Lightning Bolt]!" His lightning emerged from the staff and ran right past the frontlines. As it brought itself nearby the backline, it made one more spark and created a small radius, containing the three crossbow-equipped guards. With the sound of a violent crash echoing throughout the throne room, the attack landed onto the guards._

_However, despite it being a good hit, the guards were merely knocked down from the damage they took. They were still preparing their crossbows to fire their assault. The wizard cursed himself for messing up those words at the beginning as the full extent of his spell could have killed them instantly, but_—

"_You fool! Do you think a mere spell like that could hurt my knights!? Men, stand back up immediately and dispatch the—! W-What!? What's going on!?" The king flinched as he took notice of what had truly been going on. The affected enemies from the spell had been struggling to move from the wizard's passive [Shock] ability. The shots on the crossbows won't be firing, at least for now._

_They were down for a limited time, but the wizard knew it was still fine if they could successfully seize this opportunity properly._

["In other words, [Shock] allows you to skip those three guards' turns. However, in terms of damage, you only got 18, 9, and 5 points of health off of them which isn't enough to kill them."]

["See? This is why I took the wizard class! [Shock] is stupidly strong!"]

[Alright, I guess it's my turn now. Given that most of the enemies are still alive, I guess we'll need to start defending after our good start. We don't want to lose this momentum, after all. And so, I'll use [Reinforce] on the three of us, Ren excluded since he's invisible right now and that should—Wait, where did the D20 go!? Hey, Motoyasu! Give it back! I haven't gone yet!"]

_The paladin raised his shield, playing his positioning around the allied knight who had jumped forwards moments ago. As he ran over, the shield began to shine a somber yellow spark and soon, the radiance had spread over to the bodies of his comrades, hardening their defenses. Their resolve was remastered as every second became important, possibly being their last._

_However, the king hadn't shown his hand yet, steadily becoming impatient at his loyal knights._

"_What are you all standing around for, useless idiots!? Kill them already!"_

["... And the enemy turn starts. _Jeez_, this is going to take some time."]

_With a battle cry in unison, the remaining royal guards charged at the three warriors. Their weapons raised up high, wrath in their eyes, and killing intent was easily felt by their targets. Without any fear or doubt, the three heroes took their battle stances, and readied their own weapons, bracing for the clash that was about to occur._

_The royal guard in front jumped at the knight with his sword held in both of his hands, but his attack had been stopped by the paladin who jumped forwards and parried it with his shield. He quickly followed with a counterattack with his mace, knocking the offender back. _

_However, there were still a lot more of them to take care of…_

* * *

"... And we died. That really sucks."

A loud slam was made onto the table, knocking over the tabletop game materials and messing around some of the papers. His dirty blonde curls bounced up furiously as he glared profusely at the rolled set of dice in the middle of the table.

"_Sucks_!? No, this is _bullshit_! God, this was so _stupid_!"

The black-haired male had been staring at the recent turn of events blankly before he got a grip onto himself, releasing a great sigh into the room. His left shoulder dropped as the opposing arm went to bring his hand to his back of his head, scratching it in a mild annoyance.

"That was _three_ fails in a row. _Four_ if you count that extra perception check failure for the king's personal equipment. Those rolls were _really_ important too…"

Opposing him had been a blonde male, draping his hair into a ponytail. He leaned back in his chair, stretching back. His red eyes leered over towards each of them, thinking about what he could have done instead in those situations, but he made a conclusion with one big yawn.

"_Well,_ the plan _was_ good. We only got hit with bad RNG _really_ hard."

The dungeon master in the meantime had been scampering to recover the game pieces from the dirty-blonde player's sudden fit of frustration. The player had calmed down already, but he started to roam the room with his attitude in check. The dungeon master could only chuckle meekly in response, then turning to the player with the ponytail.

"Yeah, those dice rolls were really unlucky, Motoyasu. Wouldn't call it RNG though, since it's just real life luck."

"Naofumi, what does RNG stand for?" the black-haired player asked from the side.

"RNG? Well, random number generator."

"And what are you doing with the dice?"

"You're randomly rolling for a…" Naofumi's mind lit up as it came crashing down on his realization. "Oh crap, I guess it _is_ RNG. Never really thought about it like that, Ren."

"You know, I'd like to finish a campaign without anyone dying for once," Ren groaned, tilting his chair back and placing his feet onto the table. If this had been the dining table, Naofumi would have completely gone off on the action, but since it was a table reserved exclusively for their tabletop sessions, Naofumi let it slide.

"That was still a fun session. We almost got close to the good ending," Naofumi added on, beginning to clean up the pieces and papers. "We can return back to the Melromarc Campaign in a few days once I'm finished finalizing the pieces for the endgame of the current arc."

"We're fighting against the Spirit Tortoise in that one now, right?" Motoyasu asked, hearing the familiar campaign. "Though, I feel like it's dragging on for way too long!"

"If you didn't convince us that launching a first attack onto the Spirit Tortoise was a good idea, we could have not wasted any time with escaping the mastermind's grasp! We shouldn't be striking first, ask questions later when our enemy is a giant _fucking _turtle and a mastermind who stole our life essence to strengthened said turtle!"

"Yep, it's your fault it's been dragging on for way too long."

"W-What!?"

"It was a really bad move. Thank the heavens that Naofumi busted us out and retreated with us before anything terrible happened."

As Naofumi tried to organize everything back to its place in a neat and orderly format through the back-and-forth conversation of his brothers, he felt his stomach rumble and shortly after, it grumbled a loud noise. A small blush strode across his face as he nervously chuckled.

"I-I guess all that junk food we were eating during the campaign wasn't enough." He casually glanced along the floor around their table which had been littered with bags of chips, napkins, empty glasses, and empty bottles of soda.

"When did we even make such a mess?"

Ren scoffed at Itsuki's question. "I wouldn't know. All I remember is playing the campaign."

"Either way," Naofumi continued, "we should probably have a proper meal for dinner. After we finish cleaning, I'll grab a few things from the fridge and cook us something to eat."

Ren rolled his feet off the table, standing back up. "Actually, _we'll _clean up. Just start cooking now. I'm feeling really hungry too. Though, you should probably look to make something simple."

"O-Oh, alright." Naofumi placed the pieces and papers back onto the table for Ren and the others to collect up. Itsuki came back to the table in a better mood and started to take Naofumi's place. As he left for the kitchen, Motoyasu started to get up and leave as well.

"Motoyasu, where do you think you're going?" Itsuki asked "Help us clean up. Are you trying to ditch?"

"Relax, relax!" Motoyasu smirked. "I'm only going to the washroom! I've been holding it in since we entered the Territory of the Fallen Ruler!"

"That was an hour ago!"

"So I was holding it in for an hour! Just chill! Look, I _really_ need to go now!"

"F-Fine, just go already before you explode all over the room!"

Itsuki couldn't help but chuckle as Motoyasu waddled away from the living room and down the hall to their washroom. Seeing Motoyasu leave like a toddler made him reminisce over the times they were at the orphanage. It felt like it had been ages ago since they were spending their days without any knowledge for their futures, running through the shared halls and getting on the nerves of some of the caretakers.

It's been three years since Ozpin had adopted them, but the feeling of living inside of a proper home was still incredible to Itsuki. The fact that he could even retain the bonds with his friends—though, he should really refer to them as his adoptive brothers at this point—was a higher blessing than he could ever hope for.

That's why throughout their intensive training sessions with Ozpin, they always tried their hardest and constantly pushed themselves to their limits as a way to thank their adoptive father for taking them in with such great conditions. It wasn't as if they were doing it all for him either—they soon learned how to use their semblance through all its usage and technicalities. The strength they gained was something they could actually feel.

Though, they didn't exactly live with Ozpin. Instead, they were provided with an apartment that was within the heart of the Vale. Apparently, Ozpin didn't want them to be living on the school campus, but they were always allowed to sightsee and visit, given they don't make their semblances too obvious to the masses. Since they were coming to the age where they could enter Beacon Academy properly, the apartment only had a short time left in its use.

Itsuki believed that they would still be living in the same room on campus, but he wondered if they were allowed to get all of their things moved in, or at least, as much as they could bring over. Televisions, couches, the tabletop-designed table, their gaming consoles—all of which were gifts from Ozpin that they either accumulated from direct presents or bought using cash that Ozpin gave them.

If they were to be able to bring them over, it would really seem like they were having a special treatment over the other students, so Itsuki had second thoughts about porting _everything_ over.

Though, if they didn't bring something, where else would it go?

"Hey! Stop spacing out!" Itsuki straightened his back with Ren's snapping fingers and loud voice. "You can't help me clean if you only stand there, looking at the papers! Do something to help, at least!"

"A-Ah! S-Sorry, Ren. I'll get to—"

"Ah, crap."

Ren and Itsuki looked over their shoulders, hearing the disdain in Naofumi's voice. Naofumi had been looking inside the fridge, but he closed it without taking a single thing out. He glanced over towards the pair.

"I can't even make anything _simple_. The fridge is literally empty. We must have forgotten to restock it today, so if you want me to make something, someone will have to bike down to the grocery store." Naofumi took a second to look at their clock, ticking between the living room and the kitchen. "Ah, it's really late already. Are any of the grocery stores nearby even still open?"

"I think _FoodMart _is still open," Itsuki answered. "Worse case scenario, someone will have to head down to that one nameless grocery store that's nearby that _From Dust Till Dawn_ store. You know, that one?"

"That name still cracks me up," Naofumi smirked. "What a clever pun."

"Either way, that someone is going to be you, Itsuki," Ren followed up. "I think you were supposed to be on restock duty today."

"Wait, was I!?"

"Yeah," Naofumi nodded yet chuckling softly, "but I forgot to give you the list of things that we needed. I didn't even write it down—I was too focused on finishing the final details for _this_ campaign. I can cook up a list right now since I know exactly what we'll need for the week."

Itsuki sighed as a reply. "Ugh, do I have to go this time?"

"If you don't want to go," Motoyasu's voice emerged from the hall, "then I can go!"

"Why the hell do _you_ want to go?"

"Beats staying here and cleaning up."

Itsuki froze, narrowing his eyes onto the man. "Now that you said it, I kinda want to go."

"W-What!?" Motoyasu stomped his foot. "You can't just do that! You said you didn't want to go and I offered, so I should be going instead!"

"W-Well, it's still technically _my_ turn!"

Naofumi sighed from the kitchen, scribing words onto a small piece of paper. After finishing a word with a dot, he looked out and stopped the pointless argument before it would escalate anymore. Hearing anymore of the bickering probably would have driven him insane.

"Look, just go together, alright?"

Ren widened his eyes. "Wait, no! _Bullshit_! Who the hell will help me clean up this mess!?"

"Don't worry, Ren. I'll help you out." Putting away the pen, Naofumi walked back to the living room and extended his hand to give Motoyasu the paper. "I can't really cook if I don't have any ingredients to cook with. Might as well do something else while I'm waiting."

"Ugh, fine." Ren carried on as usual.

"Alright, it's settled then! Let's grab our bikes and head them quickly!"

Motoyasu dashed towards the front door, grabbing the keys on his way out, leaving Itsuki raising his eyebrows in utter confusion. Naofumi was just as surprised, but Motoyasu did always seem to pull off the impossible sometimes.

Naofumi's hand was still extended, not knowing as to why Motoyasu never took the list from him. There was a heavy sigh from Itsuki, shaking his head. He was glad that Motoyasu hadn't been his brother by genetics, to some degree. Of course, it was great when Itsuki wanted to be somewhat amused.

"... I'll take the list for him, Naofumi. He'll realize it in a bit."

"Yeah. Thanks, Itsuki."

* * *

"Shit, I didn't realize it was already _this_ late."

The shattered moon had already been lit in the night sky as Motoyasu and Itsuki were biking down the streets. With a slow rhythm through their legs, they kept petaling, further down than what they originally expected. Through the familiar lights being drafted by the lampposts, arrayed down the streets every so often, the roads had been quite empty. Not even the vehicles had been driving down these streets as people were probably off to the comfort of their homes during this time.

"_FoodMart_ really was closed, wasn't it?"

"At this time, I would be really surprised if they weren't. At least, that one grocery store near _From Dust Till Dawn_ should still be open around this time. All we realistically need is about half an hour to get all the things that Naofumi needs."

"It closes at midnight, right? We have plenty of time left!"

"I suppose so."

As they kept up their pace, they eventually came up near the store they had been using for their point of reference. From what Itsuki remembered, there weren't any bike racks near that grocery store, so they needed to lock up their bikes with the public one provided to the people. They were positioned right in front of the aforementioned store. Pulling out their chains, Motoyasu locked up the bikes, but as he did, he widened his eyes.

"Damn it!" Motoyasu stood back up quickly, growling at himself. "I forgot to pick up the list Naofumi was handing me, didn't I!?"

"Keep it down, Motoyasu. Shouting loudly in the streets is a good way to get into trouble." Itsuki sighed, but he reached inside his pocket to pull out the forgotten paper. "And don't worry, Naofumi handed it off to me. We can buy it without guessing now."

"What a save, Itsuki!" Motoyasu grinned, returning to finish up locking their bikes. "I can't believe I overlook the simplest things sometimes!"

Itsuki started to walk away from the _From Dust Till Dawn_ store, opening up the list and reading them aloud to get the words into his head. He more-or-less knew where the majority of the items were if they were the things that Naofumi usually requested on a weekly basis.

"Let's see… Eggs, milk, butter, potatoes…"

"You know, we always pass by this store everytime we go to this specific grocery store," Motoyasu said, catching up quickly, "but do you think that Father ever buys the dust he provides to us from there?"

"He probably has his own personal supplier, given he's the headmaster of Beacon Academy. I wouldn't be surprised if it's some company that we've never even heard about before."

"Still though, that name is pretty amusing!"

Itsuki groaned as they came closer to the block's end. "It's just a really bad pun in the end. To think that someone would commit to such a pun so much that they make it into a store's name."

"Naofumi is still right! That name is really amusing!"

Itsuki stopped, rolling his eyes over to Motoyasu behind him. "Here's the thing. Naofumi's naming convention is _really_ bad. Him liking a name really doesn't mean much."

"But I like the name. At least it's not _FoodMart_." Motoyasu pouted, just saying the name. "Like, who the actual hell decided that giving the name _FoodMart_ was okay?

Itsuki shrugged. "It gets the job done, being a market for food items. Not a big fan of the name either, but whatever. Anyways, let's just go buy these groceries and get back home. I'm starving myself too and after a campaign like that one, I think a meal is well deserv—"

The sound of glass shattering fell into their ears, originating from directly behind them.

Motoyasu and Itsuki froze in their place, sharing a quick glance to one another to make sure that they both heard the same thing.

"... You heard that. Right, Itsuki?"

"... Yeah, I did."

The noise wasn't small like accidentally knocking over a glass cup from the table. It was loud enough to have attracted attention among the streets, but from what they noticed, they were pretty much the only people here. However, as that stood, the breaking glass _certainly_ pulled their own attention from where they came from.

A man dressed in a suit had been laying on the streets in front of the broken display window of _From Dust Till Dawn_ store. It didn't take a genius to understand that he was thrown right out of it and if not, groaning from the man had been enough to convince anyone.

However, there was a quick follow-up from the scene. Out from the window, a small figure leapt outside and over the man, gaining a far distance between the shattered window and herself. She had a black dress, matching her short black hair—only divided by the red cloak she had been wearing, long enough to be waving in the subtle breeze.

Of course, someone like that had already been easy to pick out from a crowd, but what sealed her uniqueness had been the weapon she had in her hands. It was a giant scythe that she supported using her shoulder as she looked into the broken window with a smirk. She twirled it around her body before slamming its sharp end into the ground.

"... Okay. What the hell did we just stumble upon?"

"Hey," Motoyasu nudged Itsuki on the arm, "what do you think is going on? This probably isn't some type of acting, right?"

"I'm guessing not, or else this area would have been closed off…"

Motoyasu continued to stare, not being able to break his sight away. "Should we be doing something here?"

"I'm not…" Itsuki took a moment to scan the area around them once again and as he expected, it seemed like they were the only present spectators. "I'm honestly not too sure."

As Motoyasu and him conversed with each other, he started to notice a few other men in similar black suits as the one lying between them and the girl. They were peeking out from the window and as if there was some sort of command to act, the men had moved out and exited through the front door, running towards the girl with machetes in their hands.

Itsuki wanted to move, but the action started happening without their consent. As the men approached the girl, she started to move with her scythe like an expert, kicking away the first man and transitioning that into an attack for the second. She hesitated at nothing to strike the third with her scythe as she started dashing around, almost as if she had been blinking from one place to another.

Needless to say, the girl was pretty much kicking their asses and handing it back to them on a silver plate. However, there had been an odd assortment of petals that kept showing up as she dashed from one place to another.

'_Maybe that has to do something with her semblance?'_

Itsuki glanced over as Motoyasu's hands started to form a red light between the palms. A physical shape was starting to take form, until Itsuki had interrupted Motoyasu's channelling.

"Motoyasu, stop! Father said that we shouldn't be using our semblances randomly like this!"

His muscles relaxed as the red light died down. However, he replaced the aura with a red flame.

"We should do _something_, at the very least! If I can't use my spear here, my flames will work _just as well_!"

"W-Wait! We don't even know who we should fight alongside with yet!"

"Isn't it obvious?" Motoyasu asked with a smirk.

Itsuki had a feeling as to what he was going to answer with and he really didn't want it to be true.

"... Is it the gi—?"

Motoyasu ignited his fists in a flame, punching them together in a battle mentality preparation.

"It's the girl!"

Itsuki dropped his face, falling flat into his held hands. "_God, you're retarded._ Look, I'm just saying that we shouldn't just act on a whim here! We need to figure out who the villains are in this problem and if it's just an escalated dispute, we should look to break up the fight! It seems about right at this time of the day!"

However, there were a few more men that started to walk out from the store. Most of them were in the same uniform, but there was one in the center that had been holding a cane despite how young he looked. In contrast, his outfit has been a sleek white suit, topped off with a black bowler hat and an orange bang that covered his right eye. He had been smoking a cigar as the rest of the men stood right by him until he threw it on the ground, taking out the end with his cane.

"... You know, those guys _really_ look like the stereotypical mafia that I've been hearing stories about. Are you sure we shouldn't just jump in and help the girl?"

"Maybe we're misunderstanding something. _Surely_, real mafia would be more effective at dealing with one young girl than this."

There was a small conversation between the orange-haired man and the girl, but it seemed to be more one-sided with the man speaking his thoughts and the girl silently listening. After holding his cane down for a few seconds, he immediately pointed it towards where the girl was, blasting the ground below her as she deftly jumped out of the way and leaving a pothole. There had been more than one shot though, as he began to repeatedly fire the cane at her—

—until she dodged in a certain direction.

"... Wait, Motoyasu. Those are our bikes in the crossfire, right?"

"... Yes. Yes, they are… "

The orange-haired man fired once more without hesitation, annihilating everything that had been in the close distance, which included their bikes, as the girl leapt away. Itsuki could only see the charred remains and broken pieces of their bikes once the smoke had cleared out from the area.

"..."

"..."

The HUD that came with their semblances had a lot more features than they originally expected. For example, one of its many useful functions had been the _inventory_. It currently held a maximum total of 25 slots with each slot being able to stack up to 99 pieces if the items were the same. For Itsuki, he really only had leeway for 24 slots as one of his slots had been allocated to a maxed stack of rocks he kept for emergencies.

Itsuki summoned 20 of those rocks and used his semblance to keep them afloat, all with emptiness in his eyes. He took a steady and silent deep breath with a new resolve lit up inside of him.

"Motoyasu, you know how I said we should wait because we don't know who to fight with? Yeah, that's not the case anymore. It's time for _justice_ to intervene."

"Now we're talking!"

* * *

"_Well_, you're certainly an interesting one."

The orange-haired man chuckled as he pulled back his cane. However, throughout the midst of the girl's dodging, one of the black-suited men had provided their apparent leader with a briefcase, possibly containing the dust they've stolen. However, the sounds of sirens had been echoing in the distance, signaling the man that their time was of the essence.

"Listen up, little Red. I'm not a big fan of wasting much time, since I am a _very _busy person. I'm sure you would have much to say, but I'm afraid I have to cut our meeting here. We can reschedule this whenever it's more convenient for me, but for now—"

The leader blasted his cane, not at the girl this time around, but towards the ground in between them. It threw off the girl slightly, but another shot rapidly followed up. She instinctively slashed the shot to intercept the attack, causing a great smoke cloud to cover her senses. She spun around quickly to clear up the visual debris only to see that she had been surrounded by the men in black suits.

Their leader was nowhere to be seen until she noticed him climbing up one of the ladders along a nearby building. The girl glanced around, watching her opponents as they slowly circled around her, guns and machetes waiting to take her down despite her young age. It wasn't as if she was starting to have problems, but she was merely waiting to see how they would strike. She herself knew she was much better in the heat of the moment rather than pre-planning everything and executing it, but before any of them could take their shot—

"[Buster Flame]!"

—one more person had entered the fray, colliding his fiery fist into the face of one of the men. The punch drilled itself into the man's head, immediately exploding into a small burst of fire before the body was sent bouncing all the way down the streets. The man, noticeable from his blonde ponytail, landed on his feet and gave everyone else a smirk.

The girl was just as surprised as the remaining men until the newcomer stood with his back straightened, pointing towards the girl herself.

"I don't get what's going on here, but—"

Before the newcomer had the opportunity to finish his line, one of the black-suited enemies had pulled out their guns, aiming the sights down on him. The girl, realizing that this mysterious man hadn't been with them, had almost dashed in to stop the trigger from going off.

However, rocks suddenly began to pummel the man from the side with enough force to make him stagger, dropping the gun from his hand and holding it down through the pain. Everyone, except the newcomer, looked over to see one more person, one with curly hair, walking down the streets with more rocks floating around him.

"—let us join in, o' fair maiden, and we'll help you fend off against these villains!"

* * *

The girl rested her scythe back on her shoulder as Motoyasu and Itsuki came closer to the scene, gaining the attention of their perceived enemies. She ruffled her short hair from the back, nervously chuckling through a pitched voice.

"Uhm, I think I had the situation under control. It's just a robbery. No offense or anything—I really do appreciate the help."

Itsuki slowly crept up, retaining his aim on the enemies and yet, sighing once he realized that Motoyasu chose to enter the battle with those specific words. "Just ignore him. Anyways, it seems like their leader started to escape. We'll take things from here, so go after him."

"Oh, that's a good idea! I guess I _should _thank you two for the help!"

The girl spun her scythe around and started running after the orange-haired man. There was an attempt for the black-suited men to fire their weapons at her, but Itsuki immediately stopped them, shooting out some of his rocks to disarm their guns or distract them away from the girl.

"Sorry, but your opponent is _us_ now."

However, Motoyasu looked over where the girl was, as she transformed her scythe into a rifle, shooting behind her and using the recoil to launch herself onto the roof quickly. Landing with precision, she began a sprint out of their perspective.

"_Huh,_" Motoyasu mumbled. "_The resemblance of that weapon is uncanny like I thought and he _did _say that he had two nieces. Is it possible that she's..._"

"Motoyasu, what are you mumbling to yourself about? Not being sour that I sent her off to prevent you from hitting on her, right? She looks pretty young, so I wouldn't try it if I were you." Itsuki nudged his brother in the arm, beckoning him to prepare for combat. Motoyasu fell back to his usual smile as Itsuki (probably) joked around with his words. "Anyways, get ready. The fight's starting."

"Oh, right."

Motoyasu snapped out of his subtle trance and ignited his fist on fire, dropping to a combat posture that Ozpin had taught him. Keep the fists spaced out with one in front of the other, control them with his chest in mind, keep knees slightly bent and feet always moving—Motoyasu glanced over towards their opponents, keeping the most important rule of watching his enemies in mind.

_With my opening move, I was able to take out a single guy and the girl herself took down four. The number of enemies that persisted is about eight, but the number that Itsuki struck is half of that. Their hands are slightly weakened, but they aren't out yet._

_Their equipment doesn't look too good either_—_looks like it's literally only the suit and weapons, considering how easy it was for the girl to take them down. As for weapons, machetes and pistols as it seems. We can easily deal with that and it doesn't look like they have anything big with them either._

_Hmmph. How's that for your perception skill check, Ren?_

"I'll take on the frontline! You disable the backline for me, Itsuki, and I'll make my way through!"

"Of course! Don't need to tell me twice!"

Two of the black-suited men ran forwards with their blades, slashing down on both of them. They jumped to opposite sides, but Motoyasu rebounded his evasion, jumping immediately into the right man and striking him with a heavy hook in the side. The body flew into his comrade, collapsing both of them down for now. Itsuki was forced to make an extra jump outwards, but his attention had still been locked on the instructed targets.

Before they even took out their pistols, Itsuki shot them with his rocks at a wide angle. Some of them were able to react, slashing the pebbles with their weapons, but others weren't fortunate, dropping from the attack.

A total of four enemies were still standing from Itsuki's spread shot and Motoyasu wasted no opportunity as they were dazed. However, one of the men he took down had still been conscious and raised his pistol towards Motoyasu's back.

"Nope, sorry. You rolled a 1."

Itsuki stepped onto the man's wrist, forcing him to drop the weapon. He could have even sworn on hearing the cracking of a bone, but it wasn't his fault that they decided to cause some chaos within the public domain.

"Let's make sure you stay down," Itsuki said, bringing some extra rocks out from his inventory and dropping them into the man's forehead at a fast-falling speed. He immediately fell unconscious with a red bump showing up as Itsuki glanced upwards to see how Motoyasu was doing.

They tried to stop the flaming assault, but Motoyasu had been too quick. He was striking them in vital areas as Ozpin had thought him, moving back and forth between enemies to keep them at bay until someone dropped. The slashes that they threw out were much too slow in comparison to Motoyasu's agility, ducking underneath and counterattacking all within the motion.

Two of the attempting men tried to flank Motoyasu from both sides, but Motoyasu reacted just the same. Both arms were thrown out as the men came close and he touched their chests before they could begin their swings. A small flame lit itself and exploded between them, blasting both of them into the wall and into a trash can.

Motoyasu converged the explosion into the center of his chest, holding both flames in front. The two remaining men had been directly in front of him from their attempts to follow up their comrades, but they knew what was about to come. They could only react with their voices, but their bodies wouldn't budge in time.

Motoyasu made a smug expression.

"Eat this! [Hellfire II]!"

A beam of fire exploded from his combining hands and was sent flying towards the two enemies. Usually, his normal Hellfire spells would consume everything it came across, but this adaption of the spell made an explosion upon the first thing it touched, meaning—

—the men tried to block the attack, a fruitless endeavor, as the flames reached them, sending them flying down further than ever before. The street was pretty long, but their bodies were still able to slide up right to the end.

Motoyasu looked around, seeing that everyone had been dealt with. He dusted off his hands and rolled his shoulders before he started to run towards the aforementioned ladder.

"W-Wait, Motoyasu! Where are you going!?"

"Huh? What does it look like? I'm going to see if that girl needs our help or not!" Motoyasu spun around, keeping his velocity constant. "We're finished up here, so we might as well give our support!"

Motoyasu had already been climbing the ladder, as Itsuki groaned behind him. Clicking his tongue and surveying the damaged surroundings alongside the unconscious bodies, he decided to follow suit.

"Damn it, Motoyasu! Wait up!"

* * *

The impact between the leader and the girl sent both parties backwards, and yet, still standing. The girl had to admit that for someone that probably hasn't used their semblance yet, he was doing a good job without it—more so that his goons who all were taken down rather easily. Her slashes were proficiently parried by his cane whenever he could and those that could not were evaded, almost with ease. Not to mention that he was doing this all with the briefcase of stolen goods in his other hand.

However, it wasn't as if he was giving back a good offensive. With the girl's sheer speed, it was rather difficult for the man to escape his defensive shell. Even the space that they just made could be closed easily with the girl's semblance, and the man knew that, ever keeping up his guard against her.

However, he kept looking at his watch. Once he saw what he liked, he took up a posture as if he was a real gentleman and started backing off. The girl didn't think much about it, but she realized that they were still on a roof. Behind the man had been a long fall to the concrete streets.

"Hmm." The man shook his head, sighing longingly. "You're such a persistent person, little Red. I'd say that it's a good trait of yours, but you should really know to not stick your nose into other people's business. Oh, and by the way—"

Suddenly, an aircraft vehicle had risen up from the streets, hovering just behind the man and opened up its hatch for his escape. He made a small snap of his fingers as he turned around. The girl flinched and had been prepared to run right over to stop his departure, but she caught a glowing spark before her feet.

"—it's the end of the line, little Red!"

_A red dust gem!? When did he drop it!?_

An explosion roared on the rooftops, covering the entire girl in smoke.

The man promptly retreated into the aircraft, chuckling as the vehicle started to rise into the skies. He took the last moment from the open hatch to see his handiwork. He had a smug grin to his expression, but it was soon wiped out the moment in which the smoke cleared away.

Instead of an injured girl that took the full extent of the attack, a blond man with a ponytail had blocked it. In his hand had been a spear with a reddened blade, with edges in shapes of flames. From the way he defended against the attack, there should have been some levels of damage on the man, but there wasn't even a scratch.

"_What the hell_?"

* * *

**[Spear Equipped]**

**[Fire Dust Spear]  
**\- increased fire resistance (medium)  
\- increased explosion resistance (low)  
\- deals additional fire damage (medium)

"Damn, it still stings, but at least I got here in time. If Naofumi was here, he could have taken this attack with no problem. Still though, Father would be so disappointed with the way I handled that attack..."

Motoyasu shook off the attack and held his spear readily towards the retreating leader. He wasn't intending to infringe on Itsuki's warning, but sometimes, things just happen and his instincts start to move out of anyone's presetted rules. Though, he never really understood the logic that Ozpin told them to restrict usage of their true semblances as much as possible. He also mentioned that it was so rare that people didn't even know what they were.

To the average person, Motoyasu's weapon of choice had been a spear, just as the girl's was a scythe-rifle hybrid. No one would have to bat an eye simply because of his weapon and he was intending on using it to its full potential now that he had it out.

However, the man, who had been clicking his tongue, had already reached a tall enough height where Motoyasu couldn't reach him with ease. It wasn't something that a mere jump could cover. Luckily, he didn't have to do it himself.

**[Bow Equipped]**

**[Fire Dust Bow]**  
\- deals additional fire damage (medium)  
\- deals additional explosive damage (low)

An arrow flew into the aircraft vehicle, exploding along its surface. The entire thing started to shake within the air, almost swinging the leader out of the open hatch. That was only the first arrow, since Itsuki was getting ready to fire more, walking slowly towards his brother's side. Despite saying that they shouldn't be freely using the weapons, Itsuki seemed to be more into this exchange than Motoyasu himself.

He wondered if it was for the bikes. Motoyasu didn't really mind it that much, but Itsuki _did_ get his own bike custom made with his own pocket money, so seeing it be blown up probably tipped him off the edge.

With a grit in the man's teeth, he retreated into the aircraft. However, the hatch had been opened still. In his place, a woman in red and black hair walked up, glancing at the two boys. It looked as if she had been surprised by their situation, but Motoyasu couldn't see the woman all too well from this distance.

Itsuki released his arrow, aiming for the insides of the vehicle. It looked as if it was going to be a clean hit, but the woman raised her palm, almost to catch it before the arrow landed in her hand. Much to Itsuki's surprise, it didn't impale the target, but instead, it acted as if it melted away into ashes upon the sheer contact with the woman.

"What!? Did she just nullify it!? Damn it, you're not getting away!"

Itsuki started firing his arrows in quick succession, but the woman on board had been effectively countering the shots with her own fire balls. He clicked his tongue, not knowing what else he could do. There was no way that Itsuki could let them get away and Motoyasu could see that in his eyes.

"_Why are you boys always getting into trouble like this?"_

The familiar sounding voice drew as footsteps echoed behind them. Motoyasu and Itsuki, as well as the girl, drew their attention backwards. It was surprising to see _her _out of all people to arrive at the crime scene, but Motoyasu supposed that she herself was still a huntress.

"Miss Glynda! You're here!"

"Mother!"

"_Please_ stop calling me that, Itsuki." Glynda sighed as she glanced over towards the escaping aircraft. Itsuki covered his mouth, blushing from his instinctive calling. Glynda had been a part of their lives ever since Ozpin took them in and sometimes, that little title just slipped out from time to time.

"Anyways, it doesn't seem like we should be letting them retreat, should we? You already have your weapons out, much opposed to what you were told to do." She pushed up her glasses glancing over to Itsuki from the corner of her eyes. "You might as well lend me some assistance here."

As Glynda swung her crop towards the fleeing ship in a horizontal arc, purple streaks appeared along the stroke, dancing between each other as they flung themselves into the aircraft. The airship maneuvered in such a way that the damage would become minimal, as Motoyasu noticed that the leader of the goons had now been in the cockpit. He had descended the vehicle to evade some of the attacks.

Itsuki, on the other hand, focused on his own weapon. The red frame of his bow started to shapeshift, transforming itself into a jagged and frozen display, iced with a crystal colour.

**[Bow Equipped]**

**[Ice Dust Bow]**  
\- deals additional ice damage (medium)  
\- chance to freeze the target (low)

Glynda pointed her crop, aiming above the vehicle as a giant magic circle appeared above it. Quickly transforming, the circle emitted a dark and stormy cloud that was exclusive only to the area directly above the enemies and with one flick of her weapon, icicles started to rain down from the cloud, penetrating the target.

Itsuki took a knee down to the rooftop, getting a better aim on the vehicle which had been making its attempt to not lose control of itself. With the woman inside looking to be disoriented from the shift in weather, he took the opportunity to fire off his own barrage of icy arrows from the ground.

However, even in the midst of the two-sided assault, the woman managed to fire off an attack through the storm, causing Glynda to cease her own pressure and defend, putting up an energy shield before her and the others.

Nevertheless, there was a follow-up as the energy merely splattered around them.

The woman made a gesture, causing Glynda to immediately take notice of the sparkling embers. She motioned her crop towards the others, forcing them to slide out of the way. Motoyasu was taken surprised by the sudden use of her semblance, but immediately after, the area they had been standing within exploded into a pillar of flames.

Using the time they bought, the woman expunged the icicles out from the aircraft, melting them to mere water vapour in the air. Itsuki flinched, realizing that their enemy had some type of fire-oriented semblance. His ice shots weren't going to be much help anymore, so he switched back to the Fire Dust Bow, with intent to shoot at the vehicle, rather than at the woman.

With everything out of the way, the aircraft was about to make its getaway, but Motoyasu started to run towards it. The act of Glynda pushing him out of the way gave him an idea.

"Miss Glynda, send me up!"

"I'll keep providing support!" Itsuki exclaimed, reaiming his arrows. Even the girl transformed her scythe into her rifle and started taking shots at the aircraft. "Focus on taking them down!"

"You can't be serious, Motoyasu," she responded. "There's no need to irrationally engage like that!"

However, Motoyasu didn't want to simply let them leave. He thus gave Glynda an ultimatum, by tossing himself off the building with a high jump. If she didn't send him up, then he would definitely fall down into the streets.

"Motoyasu! Ugh, you've always been the most stubborn one out of your brothers!"

She flicked her wand once again towards Motoyasu's direction, and flung him upwards. The height gained had been considerable, much more than what Motoyasu could have achieved by himself. He used his spear as a ram to force the mysterious woman to evade the incoming puncture and once she ducked out of the way, Motoyasu gained access into the aircraft.

The spearhead got slightly stuck in the roof of the vehicle, but Motoyasu ignited it in flames and was able to easily rip it out of the top, dropping down onto the same level as the woman. He brushed his hair aside, messed up from the crazy maneuver he pulled off and caught a glance at the enemy clearly for the first time.

_Black hair draped over that fair-toned shoulder, beautiful amber eyes that look fierce, red dress is a bit simple though it really brings out the colour in her natural appearance... _

"... Hey, you're pretty cute. I'd say you're a solid 8. Could have been a 9, but with this whole operation going, I have to unfortunately drag it down one notch."

Before the woman had the chance to respond, not seeming to be distracted by the fact that her enemy had just complimented her, Motoyasu spun his spear around his body, dropping into a battle posture with his hand sliding down the weapon arm. The shape of the spear went from the reddened colour to a black figure, having something akin to tusks at its end.

"Anyways, sorry that I have to do this. If this was any other situation, I'd ask for your number. However, it looks like I'll have to ask you _to surrender _instead."

**[Spear Equipped]**

**[Boarbatusk Spear]**  
\- increased agility (medium)  
\- increased thrust damage (medium)

"_That spear_…"

"Hey, I hear an unfamiliar voice on board!" The voice of the goon's leader had shouted from the cockpit. "How the hell did one of them get on!?"

"... I have it under control," she responded softly and sternly. "Just focus on making our escape."

"I'll focus on trying _not_ to get shot down first!"

The aircraft had been moving quite a bit, both from the man's controls and the pressured assault from the three ranged fighters on the rooftop. However, Motoyasu kept his calm emotions, trying to keep his feet as parallel to the surface as possible. If his allies were doing their best from keeping them from flying, Motoyasu should be doing his best as well.

_I guess it's time to roll for accuracy._

Motoyasu dashed forwards, thrusting his spear at the woman's shoulders as she deftly dodged each strike. He started cycloning his spear with no trouble while moving his fingers along it, swinging it around like some sort of disk. The woman sparked a flame through her evasion, suddenly jamming her palm into the forearm of the spear, stopping its momentum.

Motoyasu didn't let a single second let up, as he pulled the spear back and bought his foot forward. It was aimed for her stomach, but she managed to catch that attack as well, flinging him backwards to the end of the aircraft. If he hadn't stabbed the spear into the ground, he would have likely fallen off.

_Still, I think both of us need to be careful. We both use an element of danger in our semblances and if we're not careful, we might send this ship right to the ground. I don't think either of us would want that. But still..._

"Cute _and_ feisty. What a _real_ shame."

Motoyasu spun his spear from the planted position and held it like a javelin. With one fluid motion, he threw the spear directly at the woman. She extended her hand as if she wanted to block it, just as Itsuki's arrows were broken apart, but a second before it reached her, she widened her eyes and aborted the method. She swerved her body to let the spear land right by the cockpit's door.

However, Motoyasu had been running straight behind it, dragging a flaming fist behind him with her name attached to it, whatever it had been. The woman threw up her arms to defend against it, crashing the impact and sending her a skid.

She must have heard the spear wiggling around, as she immediately dodged the returning spear when Motoyasu called for it. It flew back to him and he grabbed its end, twirling back to a few thrusts. He was able to scratch her cheek as she backed off from the one-sided exchange. She was practically against the wall, frustrated at Motoyasu's forward assault.

He wasn't usually this quick, but the agility buff that the Boarbatusk Spear gave him made these motions possible. If it weren't for the edge, he would have been placed on the defensive by now.

She glanced out towards the firing squad, noticing that there were a few arrows coming close towards the hatch, but not exactly due to the fact that Motoyasu was in a clear view of it. She extended her hand towards them and burned them to ashes, only to transform them back into blades. She pulled a few of them back into Motoyasu who noticed in time, turning around and slicing the blades back into pieces.

The pieces flew past him, but they reformed into blades again. They flew back into Motoyasu. The sound of the air being pierced was something that was hard-wired into his brain by Ren's own water blades. Motoyasu smirked, realizing that these attacks were much slower than Ren's blades at his best condition during their training.

Motoyasu used both ends of the spear to begin shattering the blades with ease as the woman kept remaking them. Some of the pieces dropped when the aircraft started to violently move around, shifting the woman's focus. Of course, Motoyasu's attention was slightly driven by those movements, but he still managed to fend them off.

If she kept attempting this, she was going to exhaust her semblance, but suddenly, Motoyasu noticed a cane poking out from the cockpit's door.

"Move!"

The woman pushed herself out of the way as the cane brought its reticle upwards and fired into the storm of blades and ashes. Motoyasu had no real choice, except to take the attack from the speed it was coming from. With the memory of the cane's effect fresh in his mind, he swapped his spears accordingly.

**[Spear Equipped]**

**[Fire Dust Spear]  
**\- increased fire resistance (medium)  
\- increased explosion resistance (low)  
\- deals additional fire damage (low)

He took the attack which launched him out from the open hatch, sending him flying down into the streets below. The explosion didn't seem to be that wide, but it must have caused some level of deterioration to the aircraft. Though, it wasn't enough to bring it down, so the person who fired it off must have known the limits of damage that it could take.

Not that it should be mattering to Motoyasu, as the breeze violently flew past his body. His head turned over to see how far he had until he hit the ground and it wasn't that far off.

"... Right, landing technique."

Since his body dropped down near a building, Motoyasu stabbed the surface and allowed the innated friction of a spearhead inside concrete to slow him down before he kicked off the wall and landed on the ground safety, rolling into a crouch.

His head turned upwards into the sky to see the escaping aircraft retreat into the distance. It seemed like the outside assault hadn't had much luck in stopping it, but from what he had seen, it was considerably slower than the normal ones. Though, it wasn't a speed that they could catch on feet nor a height they could reach with a boost.

The hatch started to close with the woman glaring back. It might have been his imagination, but he was fairly certain that she had been glaring at him _specifically_. Motoyasu could feel the chills out from his spine, but decided to play them off for now as the aircraft flew away into the night sky.

"... Wait, was she interested in me?" Motoyasu made the small joke to himself as he wryly sighed, standing back up. "_Just my luck_. I meet someone that can't stop looking at me and she's a criminal. Eh, there are plenty of other fish in the sea, I guess. I should probably meet back up with Miss Glynda, Itsuki, and _that_ girl again."

Motoyasu spun around and started his return walk.

* * *

Motoyasu swung his feet back and forth, simply waiting for everything to wrap itself back up. He and Itsuki found themselves waiting within the local police department after they gave their witness reports, but they weren't dismissed yet. Glynda still had a few choice words for them after the whole ordeal was over, but she was taking her time talking to—rather, she might have been even interrogating—the black-haired, red-cloaked, silver-eyed girl.

He noticed that Itsuki's leg had been moving up-and-down nervously for some time now. He sensed some frustration in his brother's movements and tapped his shoulder, trying to calm him down from whatever he was thinking about.

"Hey, are you okay? No injuries or anything, right?" Motoyasu asked in concern.

There was a pause followed by a deep sigh as Itsuki shook his head. "As a matter of matter, no. I'm not okay. That motherfucker destroyed the bike I worked hard on for _months_! And he escaped without letting me get a good punch or even a good _shot_ at him! The next time we meet, I swear I'm going to kill him!"

Motoyasu flinched from the sudden burst of aggression. "W-Whoa. Let's calm down here, Itsuki. It's just a bike here—I'll even help you buy a new custom one. There's really no need to _kill_ for a bike."

Itsuki rolled his head back, exhaling a deep breath. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. But at this point, the bike is only an extra reason to go after him. You saw how their leader had access to a bullhead aircraft. They aren't normal criminals."

"Normal criminals…" Motoyasu swirled himself in his thoughts as the image of the orange-haired man showed itself. He could have sworn that he'd seen that man before, but it definitely hadn't been in real life. Perhaps it was on the television or something…

"They had to have _some _reputation in the underground world! If we had dealt with them tonight, then it would have been a good deed spread across the world. We would have been heroes before we'd even entered Beacon if we had killed the bastard!"

Hearing Itsuki use the term so loosely, Motoyasu had doubts on the weight of those words.

"... How do you decide when it's okay to kill and when it isn't?"

Itsuki hung his head back and glanced over toward Motoyasu's direction. A blank stare had taken him as he thought about the phrasing he should take before saying it out loud. He was trying to find the answer out for himself, but couldn't exactly place his finger on it.

"I just… I guess you just feel it."

Motoyasu raised his eyebrows at the response, feeling it was somewhat inadequate. However, he didn't say anything else about it. There hadn't been much he _could _say since he was sure that their future as huntsmen would give them that dilemma once again. The job of a huntsman will come to a time where he will need to take one's life, sooner or later.

_Could I do it? Probably._

The question asked to himself echoed as the answer came almost immediately after.

_But how would I feel afterwards?_

His hands felt calm, yet he knew it shouldn't have had. A life wasn't something to be taken away at a whim. Surely, Naofumi would have felt uneasy about it, but he had a shield, not a weapon meant to kill.

_I don't know. I really don't know how to feel about it._

In the end, he released himself from the mindless wandering. There wasn't much point about thinking about it yet, especially when entering Beacon should be their primary concerns at this time. He glanced over the doors where Glynda and the girl should have been in, noticing that the clock had been going for quite some time ever since they walked in.

"Hey, Itsuki? What do you think Miss Glynda is doing in there?"

Itsuki pulled his head back up to see the doors for himself, but still shrugged. "Not sure. Though, this kinda feels like the first time we met mot—" Itsuki bit on his own tongue on purpose, stammering for a bit. "I meant, Miss Glynda!"

Motoyasu chuckled. "You really can't stop calling her by 'mother', could you?"

Itsuki's face reddened, turning away as he pouted. "W-Well, could you blame me? She's been taking care of us ever since father took us in those years ago. Actually, I would say that she looks after us more than father himself. Sometimes she cooks for us, makes sure that we don't live in a pigsty, and scolds us when we do stupid things. If that's not being motherly, I don't know what is."

"But you know, Miss Glynda and father aren't actually married, much less a couple."

Itsuki sighed, holding his head back with his hands. "_Yeah. I know_." There was a sense of disappointment in his voice. "It's only wishful thinking, but it would be nice if they _were_ together. Then I wouldn't have to feel bad about calling her mother all the time, since she _would_ be our mother."

"It would," Motoyasu softly agreed. "It really would."

As their words trinkled off, a clear clacking of footsteps came down the hall. Motoyasu and Itsuki drew their attention over to whoever had been coming down, only to notice a familiar grey hairstyle and outfit. It was none other than Ozpin himself.

"Hello there, boys. I've heard that it was quite an eventful evening for you two."

"O-Oh, father," Motoyasu stammered, surprised to see his appearance here. "It's nice to see you."

"Hello, father," Itsuki greeted as well.

"I see that you two are doing fine. I trust that there are no injuries or anything of the like," Ozpin inquired. "It would be quite problematic if you weren't able to come to your first day at Beacon."

"I feel fine, even when falling from the aircraft." Motoyasu rolled his arm to prove the point, standing up in tandem. Itsuki merely grinned as Motoyasu cheerfully showed himself off. "See? Great condition!"

"Excellent. Now I'll get down to business," Ozpin said, sitting down next to Itsuki. "I would like to hear what happened tonight. That would be appreciated."

Itsuki glanced over to Ozpin in slight confusion as Motoyasu sat back down. "Wait, but we've already given our witness accounts to the police. Shouldn't you have access to those files for this incident?"

"Yes, but is there anything wrong with… a _father _wanting an excuse to speak with his children?"

Motoyasu and Itsuki glanced at each other before breaking out into a smirk. After a silent gesture from Motoyasu, Itsuki had started talking. They talked about how Glynda had been motherly towards them, but if Ozpin had spent more time with them outside of their training hours, perhaps there wouldn't have been a need for Glynda to step in. However, it wasn't as if the boys hadn't understood.

He was the headmaster of a prestigious academy for huntsmen. That alone would have been time-consuming, considering how he seemingly did much more than manage the campus grounds. Sometimes, it was almost as if the academy had been his actual home—now that Motoyasu thought about it, they weren't actually living in anything that Ozpin owned, it was just an apartment that was being rented out. Barely did Ozpin actually come by and have dinner with them like a real family due to constant business that had to be attended to.

_Really, what could be so important that it takes up so much of his time?_

"For background information," Itsuki began, "we ran out of food in the fridge and forgot to restock earlier today, so Naofumi sent Motoyasu and I to buy some groceries. The nearby grocery store had been closed, so we decided to head over to the one near _From Dust Till Dawn_. We locked up our bikes and headed towards the store when suddenly—"

Itsuki _suddenly_ stopped himself, widening his eyes. "Ah, shit! Naofumi and Ren must be wondering where we are now! Crap, where's my scroll!?" Itsuki started to quickly pat his body down until the memory struck him. "Oh, I remember! I thought we were going to be gone for a few minutes, so I left it at home!"

"I'd advise you to watch your language, Itsuki."

"S-Sorry, but they must be confused on why we aren't back yet!" Itsuki stood up immediately from his seat. "Let's see, the police's reception desk is over there. I could probably ask for a quick call from them and—"

"That won't be necessary," Ozpin interrupted, holding Itsuki back from his seat. "I've already called ahead and told them the basic situation already. They wouldn't be coming out here, but I'm certain that they won't be expecting food from you when you return. In addition, I've already sent some groceries to extra express delivery."

"O-Oh…" Itsuki collapsed back onto the seat softly. "T-Thank you, father."

"Returning to the topic at hand, you mentioned that we were heading to the store. What happened afterwards?"

Itsuki nodded. "Right. When we were about to take a turn away from the street, we both heard the sound of glass shattering behind us. All within a few moments, there was a girl with black hair and silver eyes that had been fighting a few mobster-wannabes—though, if their leader had a bullhead aircraft, they probably _were_ mobsters of some kind. Anyways, that girl had been swinging some type of transforming scythe, beating up these guys who were apparently robbing the store."

"In the end," Motoyasu jumped in, "I guess you can say we sorta joined in on the fun!"

"Shut up, Motoyasu. You only wanted to fight because you thought the girl was cute."

"Well, she was!" Motoyasu smirked. "She's cheerful, quirky, and bursting with energy! And if that wasn't enough, she was completely nerding over our weapons afterwards! If that wasn't cute, then I guess you could sue me for defamation!"

"So you've already somewhat met," Ozpin said. "Excellent, but I suppose proper introductions should wait for now. In its place, I should introduce a bit about her before I leave to do my work."

"Introduce her?" Itsuki furrowed his eyebrows. "Why would you need to do that? She's a random stranger to us."

"First of all, she may be a stranger to you, but she is certainly not _random_. Her name is Ruby Rose and she's—"

"Let me take a guess," Motoyasu interrupted, kicking his leg over the other. "She's Qrow's niece, right? He's the only other person that has a transforming scythe that I know of and her fighting style is somewhat similar to his own."

"Hold up. _Qrow_ has a niece!?" Itsuki asked in complete surprise. "I've never heard about this!"

"Yeah, two of them," Motoyasu answered, holding up the same amount of fingers. "He never actually said it out loud, but I asked him in private one day if he had children and he told me that he didn't, only two nieces. As far as he knew, he added at the end."

Itsuki blinked at the sudden intellectual moment that Motoyasu had, not really expecting this much perception from the skirt-chaser of the household, but he started to wrap things back around. "You asked because you were curious if he had any _female _children that were our age, weren't you?"

"Guilty as charged," Motoyasu smugly grinned as he leaned back, winking towards his brother. "And hey, I think the other niece is about our age, unlike this one that's a few years younger!"

Itsuki collapsed his face into his hands. "_Goddammit, Motoyasu._"

Ozpin stayed silently, taking a slight amusement to their conversation and ended up releasing a soft chuckle between the both of them. It brought over the attention of the two brothers, as it appeared that Ozpin was about to speak.

"Yes, yes. Miss Rose is indeed one of Qrow's nieces and she's rather… _interesting_." Ozpin's words held a delicate air around them, as Motoyasu felt it started to become very ambiguous all so suddenly. Ozpin moved on before Motoyasu had a chance to even think about it. "Yes, let's leave it at that. She's a very interesting person and I see that you fought to help her out. That is why I shall overlook this incident and forgive you."

Itsuki tilted his head. "Forgive us… for what?"

"I remember telling you four that you were not to use your holy weapons outside of the training periods until you enrolled into Beacon Academy."

Both of their expressions stricken with fear that moment those words were laid down in front of them, causing them to practically jump from their seats. Motoyasu knew that Itsuki tried to warn him about it, but things just happened and they simply acted without the rule in mind, as if it vanished. He spun around onto their feet, facing Ozpin in a fluster.

"I-It was to help out Ruby, wasn't it!?" Motoyasu stammered, placing his hand on his chest. "That had to count as an emergency that falls under _some_ category! Right!?"

"R-Right!" Itsuki nodded accordingly, trying to find excuses to turn the tables back to normal. "We were holding back a good amount of enemies for her! We… uh, had _no choice_! Really! There was no way that we were taking on an aircraft with our elements!"

"Both of you, calm down." Ozpin sighed, pushing up his glasses. "I've already mentioned that I would forgive you—that you would be excused _to some degree._ Meaning, you do not need to fret so much about this."

As they shrunk back with relief, they sat themselves back down as their worry was replaced with self exasperation.

They started to hear another person's footsteps down the hall, causing Motoyasu to glance over to see a police department receptionist bringing down some items. However, if he didn't know any better, he could have said that the woman was a waitress, with a mug of coffee in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other.

"Mister Ozpin. Here are the things you requested," the receptionist said, wryly gazing at the plate. "You _did_ say a _plate of cookies_, correct?"

"Indeed, I did say that."

Motoyasu watched as Ozpin stood and took the two items off from the receptionist, holding each in his hands. He noticed that they were all chocolate chip cookies and an abundance of them too. Motoyasu couldn't stop looking at them.

"Cookies?" Itsuki asked.

"One of the reasons why I came here was the intention to speak with Miss Rose. If you remember, I did this back when I first approached you four with the notion of adoption. It was simply on a whim, but I see that it was rather effective in helping children and adolescents to open their mouths." Ozpin glanced over to the brothers as there was a subtle sparkle to their eyes. An amused smirk came upon his face. "Go ahead. Take one. I don't anticipate Miss Rose to eat the entire batch."

Itsuki stood up to get one for himself, but by the time he was able to pick one up, Motoyasu already had one in his mouth. Itsuki raised his eyebrow to the brother, thinking as to why he was so quick on things that relatively didn't matter.

"Thank you, father!"

"Thanks."

"I should probably head in now. Glynda should be expecting me around now. You two should head back to the apartment. I've already asked for special permission from the department for you two to leave."

The boys walked down the hall, cookies stuffed in their mouths, but they heard a throat being cleared up from Ozpin. They both turned to see if their father had been beckoning them, meeting Ozpin's cold glance that could have been described as going from zero to one hundred _real_ _quick_.

"_However, we will speak about your ban of the holy weapons another time. Simply because I've forgiven you, it does not mean you shall go unpunished._"

The way that Ozpin talked made them drip sweat from their foreheads as the unsettling feeling came to reach the back of their necks in a cold embrace. Luckily, Ozpin had decided to reset himself, walking into the interrogation room and leaving the two to their fates. The pressure suddenly dropped from the atmosphere, letting them drop their shoulders.

"Father can be rather scary when he wants to, I guess…"

"Yeah," Motoyasu nodded in agreement, "tell me about it."

* * *

_**Author's Note:**_

_**What's up gamers? Long time no see, huh?**_

_**I could write an entire essay on reasons why i haven't updated this story in so long, but ain't nobody got time for that. In short, quite a lot of things happened in my life, and a certain virus didn't really help. I am still alive and well though.**_

_**I wanted to write the entire first volume first before posting, but after making two and a half chapters i got hit with some real writing block, unable to write anything for the last half a year. Before I even realised, an entire year passed since the first prologue was released, and the first volume still isn't even halfway done. I apologise for that, that's pretty cringe. I released this chapter to compensate for the wait, and I guess to show that the story isn't dead. **_

_**Obviously, I have some real-life responsibilities that are more important than just writing stories, but still, I really care for this fic, and want it to be something more than just an abandoned prologue. I believe I've recently gotten my inspirations back, so I'll try to get back into writing, and hopefully, next time I upload, the entire volume 1 will be finished.**_

_**As always, massive thanks to Pretty Lazy for editing and enhancing my story, he is just as much of a creator of this story as me. Guy's a real bro.**_

_**And with all of this said, hop aboard the fanfiction train, it's time to put an end to this hiatus!**_

_**Cya next time!**_

* * *

BONUS:

As Ren and Naofumi were slowly finishing cleaning the mess, Ren glanced over the clock, realising that enough time had passed for the other two to already come back, and yet, they were nowhere to be seen.

"What's taking them so long?"

Naofumi raised his head, and seeing that Ren was staring at the clock, he also turned his head towards it.

"It's been almost an hour since they left, they should be back already, and I heavily doubt there were long lines in the shop at this hour."

Naofumi opened his mouth, but before he could speak any words, he got interrupted by the sound of his scroll's ringtone. Someone was calling him.

He pulled it out of his pocket, and glanced at it in order to see who it was.

"Is it them?"

"...No, it's Mr. Ozpin…"

Ren raised his eyebrow at that, Ozpin called them from time to time, but mostly in matters such as setting up training sessions.

Naofumi accepted the call, and put his scroll next to his ear.

"Hello, father… Yes, me and Ren are at our apartment, why do you ask?"

Ren silently stared at Naofumi with a questioning look on his face, being able to hear only half of the conversation.

"Oh, I see… Are they okay?..."

At that point Ren rolled his eyes and sighed, already having a couple theories on what could have happened.

"O-okay, that's good… When will they come back? A-alright… What about… yeah, that… Really? That would be great. Thank you, father. Yes, see you too."

As Naofumi put his scroll back in his pocket, he glanced over Ren with a tired expression.

"Let me guess… We won't be having our groceries, will we?"

Naofumi sighed and lowered his head, causing Ren to weakly chuckle.


End file.
